A New Truth
by 21ShootingStars
Summary: Wormtail is caught and Sirius adopts Harry. They travel to the past and Harry gets an education from an unexpected place. Harry  eventually teams up with someone he thought to be an enemy, and his life gets even more hectic than before. Evil!Dumbledore
1. Chapter 1

Author's note-Finally! I'm starting to actually type the stories I've been working to handwrite the past 3 or 4 months! Is it just me, or do most people feel like all of their good stories have some sort of common element to them? I was in class today talking to a friend when I realized every _good_ story I come up with has something to do with time, like time travel or pausing time. It's weird. Anyway…..Here it is!

Disclaimer-Not mine! If you recognize it, I don't own it. If it reminds you of another anything you've read before, then I probably can't claim it as mine. J.K. Rowling wrote the HP series, sadly that's not me. Get the idea yet? Good.

Summary-it's another one of those stories where Harry goes and manages to both rescue Sirius from the dementor's kiss and get him legally freed. Harry goes to live with Sirius after Pettigrew's arrest and Sirius' acquittal, and his life is about to be turned upside down, _**again**_. Sirius wises up and realized that Dumbledore is a manipulative bastard and so Harry and Sirius embark on a new journey to distant lands that will bring many….interesting happenings for the two, including time travel, odd friendships, new powers, kidnapping, love, Voldemort, veela, and King Arthur. Oh, and we can't forget about Quidditch. Join Harry as his life is totally flipped; or not, the choice is yours.

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_**This is a repost! There's nothing really different from the last time I posted this chapter, except for a few grammar and spelling and stuff like that changes. So, if you've read chapter one already don't bother to read this again. Unless you liked it, then feel free to read again.**_

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Harry is quite proud of everything he and 'Mione had accomplished a few days ago, but he had an itching feeling that there was a way he could have done better. So, what is he doing to make himself feel better? He channels his inner Hermione, of course.

Right now, Harry Potter is in the library researching time-turners. It's been nearly a week since Sirius Black, once again, escaped the clutches of the Ministry; this time on the back of a hippogriff named Buckbeak and thanks to a time-turner. In this week Harry has come up with an entirely new plan to rescue Sirius. And the last thing he needs to know to complete the plan is exactly how far back a time-turner can actually take someone.

And there it is!

_A time-turner is a device created by Merlin himself. Time-turners enable the wearer to go back and relive a recent event. They will take someone up to 3 weeks in the past and are mostly used by students and teachers with overloaded schedules, but a time-turner can be used for most anything. Though it isn't generally done, a time-turner can even return it's user to the time from which they left. They are extremely difficult to come by because of the Ministry act of 1779 stating that-_

Harry stopped searching right there. He could go back up to 3 weeks! Now he just needed to get ahold of a time-turner...

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It took another two days, but Harry managed to convince Hermione to let him use the time-turner. Of course, she thought he was only going back a few hours in order to finish a particularly nasty essay from Snape, but what Hermione doesn't know won't hurt her.

Harry wasted no more time with messing around; he had a godfather to save!

It took quite a few spins of the hourglass, but Harry soon found himself back by of the Whomping Willow, waiting for the odd group of wizards to exit the tree. He was careful to avoid anywhere that he knew he and Hermione had hidden that night; Harry wasn't exactly looking forward to letting Hermione know what he had used her precious time-turner for, and he didn't want to make that explanation any sooner than necessary.

Harry had to restrain himself countless times in the hour or so that he waited for his chance. The time he had the most difficulty was definitely when the whole group came out of the passage; harry could barely stop himself from just running over and beating Pettigrew to a pulp. His only consolation was that he'd soon be able to do anything he liked to Pettigrew, seeing as the rat would be his captive for a little over a week while Harry waited for time to catch up to when he left.

Harry had positioned himself, to the best of his ability, near where he remembered Peter running off to after transforming. When Moony came around and Padfoot started fighting, while everyone was distracted, Harry prayed that this would work. After seeing Pettigrew transform Harry waited about 20 seconds before summoning the little rat to him.

He had seen one of the twins, Harry wasn't sure which, summon Trevor for Neville after the boy had lost the toad again. Seeing the toad sail through the air had been the trigger for the whole plan. It had formed in Harry's mind without him even hardly realizing it, and before Harry really realized it he had gone over and gotten the twin to teach him the spell. It took a good three days of near-constant practice, but Harry was confident in his ability to perform the charm….mostly. He wasn't entirely sure if the fact that Pettigrew wasn't really an animal, but a human in disguise, would affect the results.

His mind was put at ease when he heard a frantic squeaking originate from about 30 feet away and get louder and closer to him every second. He couldn't see much in the dark, but Harry could just imagine an ugly little rat flying through the air exactly as Trevor had done. Pettigrew soared into his outstretched hand and Harry quickly used every charm he knew that could help to make sure the rat wasn't going anywhere; namely, _Petrificus Totalis, Locomotor Mortis_ (leg-locker)_, and Immobulous. _

Now that Peter wasn't going anywhere, Harry realized that there was something he had sort-of forgotten during the planning stages of this little trip through time. What exactly was he supposed to do for the next week? It wasn't like he could just go and wait in Gryffindor Tower. Harry did the only logical thing he could; he decided it was time to go to Dumbledore. He waited in the forest until after he knew the adults had all left the Hospital Wing and carefully snuck through the castle, wishing for both the Marauder's Map and Invisibility cloak to make the sneaking easier, and made his way to the Headmaster's Office.

With all the secrecy and sneaking it took Harry until about 12:30 am to get to the office. Once he arrived Harry wasted a good 10 minutes guessing the names of every candy he knew. He finally landed on Ice Mice, and that was when the gargoyle finally conceded to allow him in. Harry was definitely…..apprehensive about just walking into Dumbledore's office unannounced, but it was the best option he had at the time.

He cautiously made his way to the large wooden doors that open into the office, though why he was so cautious even Harry wasn't sure. He grabbed hold of the big brass griffin-head knocker and tapped on the door. It took a few seconds, but a confused "Enter." soon came from within the office.

Harry opened the door and walked in to see the Headmaster sitting behind his desk, with what appeared to be a pile of paperwork in front of him. Dumbledore was obviously a bit confused about why Harry could possibly be there; after all, he saw him not 45 minutes ago in the Hospital Wing.

"Harry! What can I do for you?" The befuddled Dumbledore asked.

"I've got a slight problem, sir. You know all about how we saved Sirius, but couldn't capture Pettigrew, right? Well…" Harry trailed off and pulled Wormtail out of his pocket, placing the rat on top of the Headmaster's desk. He knew he shouldn't have, but he kind of enjoyed seeing the way Dumbledore's eyes opened wide in shock and flicked back and forth between Harry and the rat lying prone on the desktop.

"How?" He questioned after taking a little time to regain his composure.

And so, Harry spent the next 5 or 6 minutes telling the Headmaster about his week-and-a-half of learning spells, planning, plotting, researching, and time travelling. The proud twinkle in Dumbledore's eyes became more and more pronounced every second.

After the end of Harry's tale the old man came up with a suggestion about how to get Harry back to the time he came from. "Harry, did you know that time-turners can be used to return to the time you left from?" He asked.

Harry thought for a moment before he realized that he did vaguely remember reading that at one point. He told Dumbledore that he knew it was possible, but that he wasn't sure how to do it.

"Well, Harry, all you have to do is turn the hourglass backward enough times to go to your time. And if you can do that, I can use the week I'll have before you get back to your time to track down Sirius and we can use Mr. Pettigrew to get them both trials from the Ministry."

Harry agreed to Dumbledore's plan and soon he was spinning the time-turner and appearing back when he had left. Harry glanced around the Gryffindor dorms that he had left from what seemed only hours ago. He took one look at the disgusting rat that he held in his hand and bolted out of Gryffindor tower to return to Dumbledore's office.

Harry wasn't sure why, but for some reason he hadn't been altogether comfortable with the idea of leaving Peter with his Headmaster for the week and he had insisted on bringing the despicable rat with him. No matter how many times Harry questioned himself, he couldn't come up with a single reason for his slight mistrust of the grandfatherly man; but Harry just felt a little unsure about the man.

Harry sighed and continued his trek to the man's office, 'I'm just being paranoid' he thought to himself.

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"There will now be a short recess while the judges deliberate on the verdicts." And, with that said, the judges left the ridiculously large courtroom.

While Harry fought his way through the crowd to Sirius and his Lawyer, he thought back to the events that led up to this day; the day that Harry was positive would win his godfather's freedom.

¤ FLASHBACK ¤

_Harry had gotten back to the time he left from and gone straight to Dumbledore. He gave the rat to Dumbledore and Wormtail was immediately locked in a cage that was charmed to be unbreakable, making it impossible for Peter to transform._

_Dumbledore contacted the Ministry and asked for two people Harry had never heard of before: Director Bones and Auror Shacklebolt. He also told them to bring their strongest truth potion. Harry had wondered briefly if Director Bones was related to Susan, that nice girl from Hufflepuff. The Ministry people appeared and Dumbledore told them the edited version of events he had come up with about how Peter Pettigrew had been discovered as an animagus when Harry had looked at the Marauders Map, which Dumbledore had somehow known about without Harry telling him; Harry assumed Sirius had told him when he told Dumbledore the entire story of being animagi and the way Peter really had been the secret keeper. _

_Bones and Shacklebolt looked skeptical, but they let Dumbledore cast the Animagus Revealing charm on Wormtail after taking him out of the cage. They both jumped backwards in obvious shock at the sudden appearance of a short, balding, mouse-like man. _

_Shacklebolt administered something called Veritaserum, which Harry quickly figured out forced people to tell the truth, and soon Pettigrew had spilled the whole story of betrayal and working for Voldemort. _

_Director Bones was horrified at the idea of an innocent Sirius Black rotting in Azkaban all those years. "We've got to call off the dementors and then we need to find a way to let Black know that he'll be getting a real trial. We can't just let him go, no one will believe he's innocent if he isn't put on trial; they've all been hearing how awful he is for too long to think anything different without proof. But how to find him?" She almost seemed to just be thinking out loud, but Dumbledore had no issues with answering the question, whether it was meant for him or not._

"_Director? I might be able to help with that, because Sirius Black is in this room. Sirius, why don't you come out?" _

_And, suddenly, there was Sirius. It looked like he had just appeared out of nowhere, but Harry had seen the cloak disappearing. He knew that Sirius had been hiding in the room, listening to everything going on, under an invisibility cloak._

_After the instinctual jumping back in fright at the sight of the believed mass-murderer was over, the Ministry officials agreed that they would take Peter to the Ministry and make it known that Sirius was innocent and not to be attacked on first sight and in 20 minutes Sirius would go to the Ministry where they would start setting up a trial._

_The Law Enforcement left and Sirius happily rushed over to smother Harry with a giant bear-hug, thanking him for freeing him. _

_It wasn't long before Sirius left for the Ministry._

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_The next morning at breakfast Harry received a letter from Dumbledore telling him to be in his office the next morning just after breakfast so that they could go to the trial, which is to start at 9 o'clock the next morning._

¤END FLASHBACK¤

Now, as the trial is practically over, Harry is having an unbelievably difficult time forcing his way through the crowd of adults who had attended the trial. Honestly, did people in the wizarding world have nothing better to do than watch a trial? Harry failed to see why most of the people here even cared, it's not like it really affects them whether Pettigrew goes to prison or not.

After a constant five minutes of elbowing adults out of the way, Harry finally made it to his godfather's side. Sirius saw Harry's annoyed face and asked "What'd you think of the trial?"

Harry answered"It's a circus in here!"

Sirius laughed and said "It isn't as bad as I thought it might be. But that's not important, come meet the man who's been keeping Blacks out of prison for centuries! Mr. Sinclair!"

Sirius led Harry over to his lawyer ignoring Harry's question of "Centuries?", the only hint that he'd heard Harry was a slight 'I know something you don't know' smirk on his face. He introduced Harry to Fyodor Elliot Sinclair; a man who Harry mentally noted was very intimidating.

The man just radiated a hidden power lurking beneath the surface. Harry had noticed that during the trial most everyone seemed to avoid Sinclair's gaze, always looking away if he looked at them. Almost like they were frightened. Harry wasn't sure he wanted to know why so many people feared this man, but, then again, Harry's inquisitive nature just wouldn't let it rest.

As Harry talked with the two men he tried to discretely observe Sinclair to figure out what it was about him. But apparently Gryffindors aren't very discreet seeing as Sinclair obviously noticed Harry's observations if the growing amusement on his face was anything to go by.

The only thing Harry could think of was that, with Sinclair's old-fashioned language, he must actually be a few centuries old like Sirius had commented earlier. But how could that be?

Finally it seemed that Sinclair took pity on Harry and gave him the answer. He smiled a broad, toothy, smile at Harry , who, upon seeing the long sparkling fangs in the man's mouth, took an involuntary step backwards; nearly knocking Sirius over in the process.

Sirius let out a barking laugh and explained that "Yes, Fyodor is a vampire, and No, there's no reason to fear him unless you make him mad."

Just then the Wizengamot judges came back into the courtroom and called for everyone to return to their seats. Harry was about to go to a seat when Sirius quickly said "Harry, wait, do you still want to live with me if I'm released?"

Harry nodded. Sirius said "Good, ok, go sit down."

Harry was still wondering why Sirius would ever think he'd want to go back to the Dursleys when Minister Fudge announced that Peter Pettigrew was sentenced to the Dementor's Kiss for 'crimes against humanity and being a follower of He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named.' After the guards led Peter away Fudge announced that Sirius is innocent of all charges and is to be compensated .5 million Galleons for each year of wrongful imprisonment, or a total of 6 million Galleons for those who can't multiply.

After Fudge dismissed everyone in the courtroom, Harry heard Sirius, loudly, yell out to Fudge "Excuse me, Minister? May I ask you something?"

Fudge turned around to face Sirius and said "Certainly, Mr. Black. What is it?"

"Where in the Ministry would I go to see about getting custody of my godson?"

The courtroom broke out in whispers at this, apparently people had no idea that Sirius Black had a godchild and the people in the wizarding world with nothing better to do all wanted to know who it might be. Harry barely restrained himself from rolling his eyes at the silliness of what people in this world worry about.

Fudge appeared to have forgotten that Harry Potter was the man's godson, because he looked confused for a moment before understanding lit on his face and his eyes flicked over toward Harry. "I believe that you want the fifth floor, Mr. Black, Department of Children's Services."

"Thank you, Minister." Sirius said before practically skipping over to where Harry stood. Sirius was practically bursting with joy and looked like he wanted to pick Harry up and spin him in a circle, thankfully he didn't and only bounced up and down like a five year old on Christmas while gleefully saying "It worked! I'm Free!"

Harry nearly burst out laughing at the sight.

Eventually Sirius calmed down and suggested that they leave the courtroom to go upstairs to the fifth floor, but they found their way blocked by none other than-

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Author's Note-

Cliffie!

I'm Back! My writing has, sadly, recently been shoved to the side, but I hope to get back to it more regularly now. I've got a few new stories in the works and they'll all be coming out soon.

I know this chapter was kinda sucky, but it will get better. I Swear! This chapter was mostly just setting up, but the real plot should show up around chapter 4ish, but there will be action between now and then. So, don't abandon the story yet.

And Please Review!

Thank you.

21shootingstars!


	2. Chapter 2

Disclaimer- I don't own it if you recognize it. Harry Potter belongs to J.K. Rowling

Author Note- Just so you know, the updates for this story will be slower than the last story were. Sorry, but Geometry is a pain and it fries my brain, so I can't hardly think enough to write this.

Oh, and my apologies because I just realized that when convicting Pettigrew I forgot to mention the murders of the 12 muggles. Yikes! Oh well, I don't really want the computer to send out an update for a chapter I've already posted, so I'm not gonna fix it. Consider this to be my editing of chapter 1, again.

And if anyone wants to volunteer to be my beta, THAT WOULD BE AWESOME! Because I'm really awful at spotting my own mistakes.

_CHAPTER 2_

_It has been said something as small as the flutter of a butterfly's wing can ultimately cause a typhoon halfway around the world. - Chaos Theory_

Eventually Sirius calmed down and suggested that they leave the courtroom to go upstairs to the fifth floor, but they found their way blocked by none other than Albus Dumbledore. At first it seemed like a nice, friendly, chat, but Harry could tell that Sirius was a bit on edge during the conversation. He didn't look relaxed at all and the way he held himself made it seem like he was bracing himself to be hit. Harry didn't understand why, but he figured he'd just ask Sirius later when Dumbledore wasn't around.

Dumbledore congratulated Sirius on his freedom, but then he said something unexpected to Harry. "Harry, dear boy, there's something you must know. I can't allow you to move in with Sirius; it simply wouldn't be safe for you. You must return to the Dursleys where you'll be safe."

Harry replied with "Safe? At the Dursleys? It's more likely I'll be used as a punching bag and then die of starvation from them than it is that I'll ever be safe _there_." But no one heard that, because Dumbledore's words seemed to be the blow Sirius had braced himself for, and he was angry because of them. Harry's words were drowned out by Sirius', "You can't _allow_ him to come with me? Tell me, what authority do you legally have in Harry's life other than being the Headmaster of his school? And why would Lily's awful sister's house be any safer than my home, where at least he'd be happy and not miserable like he is there?"

"There are blood wards protecting Harry there, Sirius. Harry can only be safe if he stays with his family for at least three weeks every summer!"

Sirius looked at Dumbledore like the man was quite stupid for a moment before asking, in the kind of voice one uses to answer a toddler who has asked the same question 10 times in the last 5 minutes, "Don't blood wards require some sort of blood relation?"

After Dumbledore's nod Sirius continued, "Then it's a good thing Lily told me she was adopted. Let's go, Harry. I might make sure he's back at the school by Monday, Headmaster." The trial had been on a Thursday.

Harry took one more look at his Headmaster's flabbergasted face before happily following Sirius to the fifth floor.

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Apparently the Minister had gotten word to the Department of Children's Services to expect an ex-mass murderer and the Boy-Who-Lived, because they weren't surprised. Perhaps they were a little shocked to realize that Sirius Black was Harry Potter's godfather, but they got over it quickly.

The entire adoption process is apparently really simple in the wizarding world; it only took about an hour before they finished. All they really had to do was let the Ministry workers verify that Sirius was really Harry's godfather, fill out some paperwork, and Sirius had to take a magical oath swearing to treat Harry like he would his own child and to take care of him. Simple really.

By the time the two left the Ministry, about 2:30 P.M, they were quite hungry. Sirius said that he couldn't wait to get to go out in public as both free and human again, so they decided to have lunch at the Leaky Cauldron and then spend the rest of the afternoon in Diagon Alley.

After a quick stop at Gringotts, The duo started what proved to be an interesting afternoon.

Once they finished their lunch, the first stop of the day was Ollivander's; when Sirius had been chucked into Azkaban, his wand was snapped and he really needed a new one. He ended up with a Walnut wood, Thestral hair, 13 and two thirds inches wand which Ollivander commented was quite good for offensive spells and Transfiguration. They also made stops at Madam Malkin's, because Sirius' old clothes surely didn't fit anymore and Harry had never owned fitting clothing other than Hogwarts robes, Quality Quidditch Supplies, just to look around for a bit, and Florean Fortescue's Ice Cream Parlor, because one thing Azkaban most definitely does not have is ice cream.

By the time they were ready to leave, the Aurors had been called nine times by concerned citizens who didn't seem to know about Sirius' 'capture' and trial yet. Needless to say, the Aurors were quite tired of coming and reassuring the public that Sirius was harmless. Sirius found the whole thing terribly amusing until just before the 6th call to the Aurors, the only reason it stopped being funny then was because the person who called the Aurors also decided it would be safer for everyone if Sirius was tied up and stunned so that he couldn't get away. Thankfully, the Aurors had arrived quickly and freed him from his bindings.

The whole trip did Sirius a world of good. You could still tell that he hadn't had a happy decade in prison, but by the time they left a few of the shadows had left his face. Harry hoped that eventually, with enough good times, Sirius would someday be able to put Azkaban behind him once and for all. Harry decided right then that he would make it one of his goals in life to make sure that Padfoot would be happy again.

It wasn't until Sirius was explaining to Harry about apparition and that that's how they were going to get to Sirius' home that Harry realized he had no idea where that home was. "Um…Sirius? Where exactly is your house? What's it like?"

"Oh! Did I not tell you about the house yet? Well, it's in Southwest Bavaria, or in Germany. When I was sixteen, just after a ran away from my family and moved in with your dad, my great uncle Alphard died and he left pretty much everything he owned to me. He was one of the _very_ few people in the Black family who I liked; he always had an odd sense of humor, and I think he thought it was funny how little I was like the rest of the family. Anyway, he left me this house and a bunch of other cool stuff. Your dad, Moony, and I moved in right after Hogwarts; we re-did the whole place Marauder-style. It was great back then and I hope it's not too messed up since it's been empty all these years."

"Okay….so, how does apparating work again?"

"Just grab my arm. And don't let go, whatever you do! I made that mistake once; I landed on my arse in the middle of nowhere and it took Uncle Alphard nearly 2 days to track me down, and I was only about 6 at the time. Thankfully I had our tent in my backpack because we were going camping, so it wasn't too bad. But, just don't let go, okay?"

"Alright." Harry said, apprehensively. He wasn't too sure he liked the sound of Sirius' story; he surely didn't want that to happen to him.

He grabbed hold of Sirius' arm and only had to wait a few seconds before he started to feel like he was being squeezed through a tube. After what seemed like ages, just when Harry was starting to wonder if the terrible sensation would ever end, they appeared in front of a large set of iron gates.

All Harry could really say after getting his first look at the 'house' was "Wow."

Sirius chuckled at Harry's dumbfounded expression. "Welcome to the Marauder's Playground, formerly known as Black Castle."

And Castle would be the right description. The place was a huge, black, stone structure, perhaps half the size of Hogwarts, with turrets, towers, and battlements; it even had gatehouses on either side of the iron gates. Through the gates Harry could see what looked like a series of floating stepping stones leading up to the castle entrance. The stepping stones were all fairly close together and some were quite large, so you were very unlikely to fall from them. Following the path of the stones the hundred or so meters to the castle entrance with his eyes, Harry noticed something that he really wondered how it had taken him so long to see before. The castle wasn't on solid ground like most buildings, No! This castle was _floating_. Yep, that's right; it was just floating in midair. The gates were right on the edge of a cliff and opened right up to the stepping stone pathway. Looking down beneath the castle Harry saw a crystal clear lake about seven meters below the castle. With the sun shining on the lake, it looked like a scene from a fairytale almost.

Harry couldn't believe his eyes and turned to Sirius to get him to tell him that his mind was just playing tricks on him. What he saw wasn't helpful in the slightest. Sirius had just finished opening the gates and was now running full-speed toward the castle, jumping from stone to stone with a recklessness Harry had never seen from an adult before. Sirius was halfway up the path before Harry noticed something else strange that he decided he had to try. Cautiously stepping his way toward the castle, Harry laughed when he realized that some of the stones had a colorful dot in their center and these stones made crazy sounds when you step on them. Some made musical notes, some made barnyard animal noises, and Harry was pretty sure that the purple one halfway up the path had just called him ugly names in French.

Sirius spent the better part of two hours showing Harry a few tricks that were a part of the castle, courtesy of the Marauders of course. On the lowest level of the house, there were some places that the floor looked perfectly solid but when you step on it there's nothing there and you freefall into the lake below. There was the occasional booby trapped door that is designed to play a different prank on you every time you walk through it, like one time after walking through a doorway Harry was forced to sing anything he wanted to say for the next 5 minutes. And one time Sirius' hair turned Slytherin colors, once again thanks to a cursed doorway. Harry personally enjoyed the room where all the walls and the floor and ceiling were made like trampolines and you could just bounce all over the place to your heart's content.

By the end of Harry's tour he fully understood why the castle had been re-named as Marauder's Playground.

They finally ended up in a sitting room where Sirius was answering Harry's questions about his parents. There were a few things Harry really wanted to know: If his mum was adopted, did she ever find out who her real parents were? What did they do for their jobs before they went into hiding? What were they good at? Did the Marauders fight with anyone like Harry did with Malfoy?

Sirius told Harry so many stories to answer his questions that Harry wondered how it was possible that his Parents and their friends managed to do so much together in the decade that they were all together. Some highlighted the brilliance of the Marauders, others about just day to day life in the 70's at Hogwarts, and still more that showed some of the Marauder's worst mistakes.

"_We were in seventh year when Lily found out about being adopted. It was the day before Christmas Holidays and in potions class we were making a bloodline potion; it shows your family tree up to 1200 years back. The final step in the potion is to add one drop of your blood for every century back you want the tree to go; if you only want 100 years, then you only add one drop or if you want the full 1200 years you would add 12 drops. I think Lily only added 2 or three drops, she wasn't really very interested in knowing a lot about her family history. After you add the blood to the potion all you have to do is pour the potion onto a piece of parchment and the family tree appears there._

"_Once Lily's started showing up, James noticed that she was crying and he asked what was wrong. She didn't answer him at all; she just bolted out of the room. No one could find her the rest of the day and then on the train home she got a compartment to herself and had the door warded to burn anyone who tried to get in. _

"_Lily was supposed to join the Marauders at James' house, where we always went for Christmas, that year, but she told us she would see us at school and just took a muggle taxi back to her parent's house. By this time we were all just about ready to follow her home and demand to know what was wrong so that we could fix it. We decided our rescue mission would be in three days if she hadn't contacted us by then. It was only the next morning when James got an owl from her practically begging him to come get her._

"_The two of us apparated over to her house and the first thing we saw was her sitting on the porch sobbing. Once we got her to the Potter's house she told us how the parchment in Potions Class had said that her name was Lillian Pendragon and that her parents were Victoria and Alexander Pendragon; according to her parchment both had died in 1962. _

"_When she'd talked to her adoptive parents about it they insisted that she wasn't adopted and that she was their birth-child. She was so confused, she didn't know what to do and so she used legilimency on them and found that they'd had their memories altered and truly believed that she was their child. To this day we still don't know what wizard would've gone to such lengths to put Lily with the Evans, and we probably never will."_

Sirius told Harry how his dad was an Auror for the Ministry and Lily was working toward getting her Charms and Potions Masteries when they were killed. He told him about how James was brilliant at transfiguration and Lily was the most caring person the world had ever seen. She was always able to find something to like about anyone, especially when no one else could.

Sirius told Harry all about the first time the Marauders met on the way to Hogwarts. How they met Lily and the person she had been best friends with for the last two years on the same trip, and, While James was practically convinced it was love at first sight, Lily hated the Marauders right off the bat because of how Sirius treated her friend.

When Harry asked about that friend was the first time that Sirius seemed reluctant to answer. "Lily's friend was the first one to recognize that she was a witch, he taught her all about our world. I never really understood what she saw in him, because in my opinion he was a right git and far too aggravating and unpleasant for someone like Lily to waste her time with. The Marauders made it our goal in life to make his Hogwarts life a living hell with pranks. Of course, that didn't make James very appealing to Lily, but he didn't realize at the time that that was the reason she wouldn't go out him. Anyway, their friendship ended in fifth year when he did something beyond stupid and insulted Lily in front of the entire school. After that he just became even more annoying and eventually I took a prank too far and he nearly died because of it; he would've died if your dad hadn't saved him, but the git just hated us even more because James rescued him. He thought your dad was in on the prank and got cold feet, but James never would've let me do what I did if he'd known about it. The git will probably never forgive your dad for saving his life the way he did. He _hated_ James, and it only became worse once James won Lily's heart." By the time Sirius finished talking he sounded very remorseful and Harry could tell that Sirius sincerely wished he hadn't done whatever it was that he did.

But then, something Sirius said reminded Harry of a conversation from two years ago. A conversation in the hospital wing with Professor Dumbledore. A conversation in which Dumbledore admitted to Harry that one of his professors hated his father because James saved the professor's life. Professor Snape. "My mum's best friend was Snape?" Harry all but shouted in disgust after he figured it out. When Sirius nodded, all Harry could say was "Weird."

After that, Sirius had a few questions for Harry. What were his first two years at Hogwarts like? How long had he been playing Quidditch? Where did he get the Marauder's map from?

And Harry told Sirius all about Flying Lessons and becoming the youngest seeker in a century, The Sorcerers' Stone, Quirrel, and Voldemort. He confessed how during his second year nearly the entire school thought he was the Heir of Slytherin, all about the Polyjuice Potion, and all about how he and Ron used Hermione's clues to save Ginny from the basilisk.

By the end of the Basilisk story, Sirius was swearing that Dumbledore would be getting a piece of his mind the next time he saw him.

This reminded Harry of a question he'd had for a while. "Sirius? Why is it that you don't seem to like Dumbledore very much?"

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Monday morning came quicker than Harry would've liked. He greatly enjoyed his long weekend with his godfather, but he was going back to Hogwarts in just over an hour. And he wasn't looking forward to seeing either Snape or Dumbledore again.

Snape, Harry didn't know what to think about the man now that he knew more about his past. Sirius had never once refused to answer any of Harry's questions and Harry had been curious about his mum's best friend; he wanted to know what it was that Lily had seen in Snape. Sirius told him what little he knew about the man: Lily had once told James that Snape's muggle father hated magic and was abusive toward Snape and his mother, Snape actually used to be _nice _to some people (Lily being one of the few), Snape had ruined his friendship with Lily by calling her a mudblood and Lily never forgave him, and Sirius knew that Snape used to be one of Voldemort's followers, also known as Death Eaters, but he'd become a spy for Dumbledore's group of resistance fighters and gave them inside information on Voldemort's plans. Harry wasn't sure whether he admired Snape for being able to survive for so long double crossing Tom Riddle or whether he wanted to hex the man for ever insulting Lily by calling her a mudblood.

Dumbledore, the thought of him alone was enough to make Harry's blood boil. Sirius had explained exactly why he didn't like Dumbledore. And Harry knew that if Dumbledore ever tried anything like what he had done to Sirius again then Sirius wouldn't be able to control himself. Harry had a feeling that if he knew more effective hexes he probably would've tried to at least do _something _to make the meddling old man pay.

For now, Harry would just have to wait and see if he had a chance to get back at Dumbledore for everything he had done. He also knew he should let Sirius have first crack at revenge, after all Dumbledore had done more to him than he ever had to Harry.

Harry was enjoying himself thinking up ways to embarrass his headmaster when Sirius knocked on the door and stepped into his room.

"Hey, Pup, I've got something I want to tell you before we head back to Hogwarts. You know how your parents were in hiding because they knew Voldemort was after them? Well, when they went into hiding they knew that there was a chance that they wouldn't survive and you would. They thought that if that happened you would be with me from the start, but we both know that didn't happen. One thing that we all worried about was Dumbledore, we all saw that he had some unhealthy amount of interest in you and we worried that he would try to take you away from me if I got custody of you. Now, we both know that Dumbledore did a lot to keep us apart and I'm worried that what we worried about all those years ago will come to pass and he'll try to take you away from me.

"Your mum was the one to come up with an idea on how to stop that from happening. In the magical world, one thing that the Ministry _really _will not condone is taking a child away from their blood relations. In the past, whenever a child was adopted into a pureblood family they would be blood adopted to make sure that no one would be able to legally take the kid from the family. Your mum suggested that, even though it isn't something that's done very often anymore, we could do a blood adoption if we ever feared Dumbledore was trying to keep you away from me. It's your choice if you want to do it or not, but if you do I have everything we need to do the adoption." When Sirius suggested the adoption, he seemed to be very uncertain; almost like he really thought Harry would say 'no'. Harry couldn't help but wonder where Sirius ever got the idea that Harry would reject him.

Harry looked at his godfather, who was currently looking at his shoes, and said in a certain voice "I'll do it. What do we have to do?"

Sirius looked up quickly and seemed to search Harry's face for any hint of indecision. He found none. He reached in his pocket and got out an aging parchment and a vial of a potion. "Lily wrote you a letter and she told me it's got all we need to know about doing the adoption in it." Sirius said quietly.

Harry reached for the letter and carefully unfolded it.

"_My Darling Harry, _

_If you're reading this letter, I want you to know that I'm so sorry that I'm not around. I can't possibly tell you how much I'll miss you. I hope you have plenty of good memories of your father and I and that you'll be able to move on and help Siri to move past our deaths too. I know Padfoot loves you and will take great care of you. _

_Lately James and I have been worried about the idea that someone might try to keep the two of you apart and I believe we've found a solution to that should the problem ever arise. In the magical world many families have used blood adoption to fully bring a child into their families and protect them at the same time. I've given Sirius everything necessary to do a blood adoption if that's what you decide to do. The adoption will only work if you both truly want it to happen, so it's your choice whether or not to go through with it. I know Sirius is willing to make you his son; otherwise he wouldn't have given you this letter._

_Know that even if you do the adoption, James and I are still your parents and will always love you very much; you'd just be gaining a third parent in Sirius. All the two of you have to do is add some of Sirius' blood (7 drops) to the potion in the vial I've given Sirius. After that you both need to cut a slit in your left palms and join those hands. While you two have your hands joined you need to take the potion in the vial. You'll know when the potion has finished its work. Oh, and you have to let your hands heal naturally; no touching them with any magic at all, either of you!_

_You should also know that one of the side effects of the potion is that it sometimes it causes the person being adopted to take on a few family traits of the person adopting them. Like, say you had been a blonde; your hair might have turned darker to be more like Sirius'. Who knows, maybe if you've been cursed with the Potter family trait of awful eyesight this could fix it!_

_Baby, remember this forever, please: No matter what you do in life James and I will always, always, love you. Be happy, find love, and enjoy your life your way._

_All My Love, _

_Mum (Lily Evans-Potter)_

If Harry had had any reservations about this adoption they were absolutely, without a doubt, gone now. He knew that his parents would approve of him joining Sirius' family, and he knew that this would make him happy as well.

He turned away from Sirius for a second to wipe his suspiciously pricking eyes so that Sirius wouldn't see his tears. He took a few moments to compose himself before turning back to Sirius and telling him what his mum said to do with the adoption.

Sirius nodded and absentmindedly summoned a self-cleaning silver dagger from the Castle's Potions Lab.

Smiling good-naturedly he opened the potion vial and said "Here goes nothing!" and Harry winced as, in one swift motion, Sirius cut a slit straight across his left palm. He let seven drops of his blood drip into the vial. He carefully swirled the vial to mix his blood into the Potion.

He offered Harry the dagger and Harry took it and looked at it apprehensively. He may be perfectly alright with getting himself injured in some reckless quest to save people, but he had never actually willingly and purposefully cut his skin open before. He decided that if Sirius had done it so easily then he wasn't about to chicken out. Taking a quick, deep, breath in, Harry followed Padfoot's example and swiftly brought the dagger down, making a gash straight across his palm. He was proud to notice that he hadn't so much as winced until it was over. He noted that it wasn't _too _painful…. more of a persistent stinging that kept gradually getting worse.

He set the dagger down on a nearby table and asked "Ready?" When Sirius responded positively Harry reached for Sirius' left hand with his own and grabbed the potion from him with his free hand. Harry made a disgusted face at the potion; somehow he knew that this was likely to be as pleasant as taking a double-dosage of Skele-Gro. 'In for a penny, in for a pound.' Harry thought before tipping his head back and chugging the potion.

He was right; it was **revolting!** Was it impossible for any potion to taste good? Or at least better than _that_ would be nice.

Harry Shivered as the awful taste went down. He briefly noticed a slight tingling in his eyes and a few other locations on his body before it became more intense. It kept on getting worse before it abruptly ceased.

Relief at the end of the pain was all Harry felt before his world went black.

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Author's Note- ! Another update, and fairly quickly too! You should be proud of me! I hope you liked it, and if you did I wouldn't say no to a review *_Cough__**Hint**__Cough_* and if you didn't like it, feel free to leave a review saying why so that I can do better next time.

Ok, I know there wasn't much plot to this story yet, but there were some things leading up to what's coming. And fear not! You shall know all about what Dumbledore has done…..Eventually.

21ShootingStars


	3. Chapter 3

Author's Note- Hey people! I haven't got much to say today other than a giant thank you for _**ladysavay **_ for being my first (and as of right now, only) reviewer.

Disclaimer- J. K. Rowling owns it. That's not my name, so I don't think I own any of this.

So, on with the story.

_CHAPTER 3_

_It's a dog-eat-dog world, and I'm wearing MilkBone shorts.__ – Kelly Allen_

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When Harry came around, the first thing he noticed was that he was not on the hard floor where he vaguely remembered collapsing. He was lying on something so soft it could only be a bed.

The next thing he noticed was the voices talking in the next room. He couldn't exactly tell who they belonged to or what they were saying, but he figured that one was probably Sirius as he was the only other person Harry remembered being around when he….fainted? Or whatever it was that happened.

Harry leaped out of the bed and started for the door, but he had to sit back down on the bed almost immediately when a wave of vertigo hit him. Harry let out a groan as his head began to pound. How long had he been out?

Apparently his pained groan had alerted Sirius and whoever his guest was that Harry was awake, because just seconds later the door burst open and in walked Sirius. "Harry! You're awake! How do you feel?"

"I hurt, like Hell. What happened?"

Harry sort of noticed that Sirius seemed to have cleaned his appearance up while he was unconscious. His hair was no longer elbow length, now only reaching just past his shoulder and it now had layers and was wavy and clean. Through his headache, Harry noticed that he was happy Sirius had taken care of himself; Sirius' entire appearance was a lot more like Harry remembered from the picture of his parents wedding, he idly wondered if Sirius had started taking some sort of Health Potions, that was the only way Harry could imagine such a quick change in his appearance.

"Sorry, Pup. Here, take this Pain Potion. Moony and I think it was some sort of magical overload that knocked you out. He says that that is actually a common side effect of blood adoptions, apparently they cause you to have Black Family magic as well as Black blood."

"Professor Lupin's here?"

"Yeah, he got here yesterday. He heard about me adopting you from the newspaper and how you haven't been back to the school since then and he wanted to visit us. I guess he figured we'd be here since this is where I lived before Azkaban. Oh, and I wanted to ask you if it's ok if I ask Moony to move in here?"

Harry had tried to follow everything Sirius said, really he did, but it was actually quite difficult; Sirius was talking a mile a minute and each new thing he said only managed to make Harry's head spin even more.

"Yeah, that'd be great. Professor Lupin's awesome. And Yesterday? How long have I been out? And what's the newspaper got to do with anything?"

"It's Wednesday afternoon, pup. You've been out since Monday morning. The Daily Prophet somehow got wind of the fact that I adopted you, and they also found out that you haven't been back to school since then. They ran an article about both of those facts, and they seem to believe I'm pulling you out of Hogwarts."

"Oh. Fun."

Sirius chuckled and handed Harry another potion. "Here, this reduces dizziness. You should feel better in about three minutes. "

"Thanks." About 150 seconds later…"So, I think I remember you telling Dumbledore I'd be back at school on Monday. Has he tried to contact you and bother you about me not being there yet?"

"Nope! Even if he's wanted to try contacting us, he has no idea about where this place is and he can't send a letter because of the wards. Only owls either wearing a special tag, one that the people Marauders would want to get letters from all received when Remus put that ward up, or an owl with any newspaper or magazines. I have no idea how Moony managed to find that ward, but I like it. It keeps us from getting unwanted mail, like mail from Dumbledore!"

Harry rolled his eyes at Sirius and then asked "So, what is the plan now? Am I going to school tomorrow?"

"Well, I don't see any reason for going back to school unless you want to. The year ends on Tuesday of next week, so if you want I can just tell the school you've come down with some illness and you can just stay here." Sirius sounded like he thought that would be the best idea ever and any sane person would jump on the chance.

No one ever said Harry was sane.

He was torn. He didn't want to just leave his friends thinking he was deathly ill, not knowing he was perfectly fine, and entirely unable to contact him because of the wards. On the other hand, he _really_ didn't want to see Dumbledore and getting out of school a week early did sound pretty nice, and so did getting to spend that extra week with Professor Lupin and Sirius.

"Er…I think I'd like to go back to school; just to let Ron and Hermione know I'm okay and so they know about everything to do with the adoption. And do you think I could get some of those tags for bypassing the wards so that I can give one to the Weasley owl and one to Hedwig?"

Sirius had looked a little deflated at the idea of being alone while Harry was at school, but then he must have realized either that it was only a little less than a week or the his buddy Moony would still be around because he went back to his perfectly happy self.

"That might be a good idea. I know I wouldn't have wanted all my friends to think I was on my deathbed and then have their owls returned unopened when I was in school. So do you want to go back tonight or...?" He trailed off, leaving the question open enough that Harry could say anything.

"What time is it?"

"It's about 5:50 PM. Why"

"Dinner at Hogwarts ends at about 6:45, so I think if I should go tonight and get there at about 7. What do you think?"

"...That should give me enough time to make the tags to let the owls in. Can you be packed by then?"

"I was almost totally packed on Monday morning before I passed out, so, yes, I can probably be packed by about 6:30."

"Good. I'll go get to work on those tags." And Sirius left.

Harry slowly pushed himself out of the bed, wary of causing another bout of vertigo, and winced as he put pressure on his left hand. Taking a closer look at the injury he'd forgotten, Harry saw that someone, probably Sirius, had wrapped a bandage around it. Out of morbid curiosity, Harry unwrapped the bandage to see how bad it was. He grimaced at the sight of the cut; it looked infinitely worse than he remembered it being. Harry guessed it was just part of the healing process, because the cut did appear to be closing; it was just a little swollen and a very crimson shade of red.

He re-wrapped his hand and looked around his room to figure out what needed to be done first. He decided that the first thing that needed to be done was to clean himself up.

After brushing his teeth, taking a quick shower, Harry got a shock when he stood in front of his mirror after getting dressed. Harry knew he's never paid too much attention to his appearance, but he was pretty sure he'd never looked like _that _before. He was positive his hair had never before been as long and…._controlled _as it was right now. It was still sticking up a tiny bit in the back, but it wasn't the rat's nest it used to be and it was now nearly reaching his shoulders. And his round face was slightly longer and his cheekbones slightly more prominent. His shoulders were a bit broader, but not too much. Harry was extremely glad to note that one thing that hadn't changed was his brilliant, emerald, green eyes; he exact same shade and shape as his mother's, they were something he would have been sad to see go. It was then he realized something else, he wasn't wearing his glasses, but he could see perfectly fine! His mum was right; the adoption had cured the potter curse of awful eyesight! Harry was impressed that he now managed to look like both his parents and Sirius without looking drastically different from his original appearance. The changes weren't subtle, but they weren't overbearing.

Harry spent probably five minutes staring at himself before realizing he was supposed to be doing something. Shaking himself out of the stupor he had fallen into, Harry went back to putting a few days worth of stuff in his new trunk. He grabbed just enough clothes for a week and threw them into the trunk along with the few other things he thought necessary for the rest of the term at Hogwarts. After all, he _does_ have an entire trunk full of most of his belongings already at school.

At about 6:25 Harry grabbed his trunk and dragged it into the hall outside his room. He left it there and went off in search of Sirius or Lupin.

It took him a good ten minutes to make his way down to the library, the one place I the entire building free of any joke jinxes or other pranks, and he found Professor Lupin in three offices connecting to the library. The three Marauders who'd lived there, Peter's parents had insisted he live at home until he got a job to properly support himself, had all had their own office to work in.

Harry couldn't help but smile at the colorful, moving, murals decorating the office doors. The murals even made noise when someone was looking at them, but otherwise they were silent.

His father's office door was a simple outdoors scene with a clear blue sky, perfect green grass, and a Quidditch pitch. In the stands Harry could just barely see a much younger Lupin reading a book while shaking his head at the antics of his friends. Sirius and James appeared to be trying to out-do one another with the most impressive stunts. James was standing on his broom fifty feet in the air and flying in circles around Sirius. Sirius suddenly did something Harry never would have thought his godfather capable of and somehow pulled off a one armed handstand for a good 15 seconds before gracefully lowering himself back to the broom. Harry saw his father raise his hands in surrender, obviously acknowledging defeat, just as a blur of red hair ran onto the field and began berating them for their stupidity. The scene just repeated over and over again.

Looking at the other doors, Harry realized they were all three scenes of some point in the Marauder's youth.

Sirius' door depicted a scene in the Great Hall that had Harry wondering why things at Hogwarts in his time were never that interesting. One by one the teachers all began singing at the top of their lungs while changing colors. They were singing the School Song and they all appeared to be wondering exactly why they couldn't quit singing. As the song ended a small cake appeared in front of every teacher and slammed right into their faces. After that, nearly every student in the Hall stood up and applauded their professors and Harry chuckled as Dumbledore congratulated the 'Masterminds behind that bit of music.'

Lupin's door was, in Harry's opinion, by far the best.

Lupin's door showed a moonless night with the sky full of stars providing plenty of light for the scene. The four Marauders were out swimming at the Black Lake in the middle of the night. Peter was sitting on the beach watching as his friends had a splash-war in the shallows of the lake. Harry watched as Sirius bet Lupin that he would be too chicken to find and touch the squid in the dark. Lupin obviously wasn't about to let Sirius be right and he swam off to the middle of the lake, where they'd usually see the giant squid as it was the deepest area in the lake.

James was suddenly screaming as he was pulled underwater by some unseen force and came up moments later yelling about the "Damned Grindylows!" It seemed that his screaming had awoken something else in the lake as just moments later something pulled all three of the swimming Marauders underwater for about 10 seconds before three long tentacles shot out from under the surface of the lake and violently launched them 150 meters to the shore; all 3 marauders were cursing and screaming so loudly the entire flight through the air it was a miracle all of Hogwarts didn't wake up. Harry was shocked at what he heard coming out of Lupin's mouth the whole time; somehow he'd always imagined Professor Lupin as the quiet one who never swore or did anything remotely against the rules. He'd obviously imagined wrong.

When they landed on the lake's shore Harry momentarily worried about their safety before he saw them all jump up, a mischievous fire glowing in their eyes as Sirius yelled "That was Wicked!". They'd just started limping back to the castle, obviously pained, before James looked at his friends and asked "Time to go see Madam Pomfrey?" and the others responded with a solemn "Yeah." And "I wonder how much trouble we'll be in this time?"

The scene started over just as Harry thought he'd bust a lung from laughing.

Harry indulged his curiosity a little longer and carefully opened the door to his father's office. It was quiet but it looked as if a tornado had recently run through the office leaving it a terrible mess and Harry silently, reverently, looked around. There wasn't much special about the room, just some bookshelves, pictures, and a cluttered desk, a broomstick hanging on the wall along with a quaffle and Snitch, and a window looking outside.

On the desk Harry saw an official-looking letter that was half coated in dried ink. Reading the letter, Harry felt a stab in his heart as he imagined his father sitting here reading a letter from the Ministry telling him about his parent's deaths. Harry could practically see his father destroying this office in a fit of rage at his parents' murders.

Harry didn't notice as Professor Lupin slipped silently into the room. "The day your father got that letter was the last time he ever stepped foot in this room. After he read it he went crazy and broke down, he threw things and just made this whole mess before he broke down crying. It was one of the only times anyone ever actually saw him cry, but he wouldn't let us help him. After he calmed down it was like there was something totally different about him; he went to the Ministry and signed up to join Auror training, he had been playing Quidditch for Puddlemere United, and he suddenly was out there fighting Voldemort and his people with a vengeance. He could barely stand to see this room after that day, though. I think it reminded him that no matter how many bad-guys he captured, he could never save his parents."

Harry had jumped at the sound of his ex-professor's voice. Even though it was quiet as always, Lupin's voice had cut through the silence of the office. Harry noticed that Lupin seemed to be hardly even speaking to Harry and looked more like he was caught in his memories. He waited a moment until Lupin seemed to be back in this time before speaking to him.

"Hello, Professor, It's good to see you again." Harry didn't really know what to say about what Lupin had told him.

Lupin frowned before saying "Don't call me Professor, Harry. You can call me Remus of Moony, but I'm not a professor anymore. And it's good to see you, too. Thank you for freeing Sirius, I suppose I can forgive myself for allowing Peter to go free now that they're both where they belong."

"But it wasn't your fault he nearly escaped! And anyway, like you said, it doesn't matter now because Peter's in Azkaban and Sirius is free."

"Thanks, but it was my fault. If I'd only taken my potion none of that mess would've happened" Profe-Moony was obviously not going to let Harry tell him it wasn't his fault, so they stood there in silence for a few moments before Lupin spoke again. "Let me see your hand, Harry."

"What?" Harry was startled by the non-sequitor and Lupin had to repeat himself before Harry gave him his hand. It was then Harry remembered that he'd not wrapped it up again before leaving his room; he'd been unable to find any bandages.

Lupin conjured more bandages and wrapped them around Harry's hand, which had miraculously not begun bleeding since Harry had last taken the bandage off. Harry thanked Lupin- Moony, he mentally corrected himself- and then they set off to find Sirius. Sirius was discovered sitting at his office desk, frowning at a pair of what looked like tiny collars; Harry assumed, correctly, that those were the tags that would allow owls access past the wards. He turned around at the sound of their entrance and when he saw Moony he immediately admitted that he'd absolutely forgotten the way to properly key the tags into the wards.

Lupin shook his head in a display of mock shame, and he then, in a patronizing voice, explained that all Sirius had to do was go to the Master Wardstone and lay the tags upon it for a few minutes until the glowed blue, which was the sign that they had soaked up enough of the Ward-Signature that they would be able to bypass the wards.

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It was barely half an hour later that Sirius and Harry apparated to the middle of High Street and began the trek up to Hogwarts.

Upon arriving at the gates of Hogwarts and finding them open, apparently Dumbledore wasn't stressed about security, the duo simply walked up to the castle and separated at the Entrance Hall. Sirius was off to find Professor McGonagall and inform her, as Harry's Head of House, that Harry had been safely returned to the castle and about Harry's new status as Harry Potter-Black.

Harry, on the other hand, was off to Gryffindor Tower to find Ron and Hermione. He knew that they'd probably be worried to death about not having a clue what's going on. He first checked the Library, as it was actually on the way to Gryffindor Tower, but Hermione was nowhere to be found. Arriving at the Tower Harry found that the password had been changed in his absence. He tried to argue with the Fat Lady and he even asked her if it was possible to go into one of the paintings within the Common Room and ask someone to let him in, but no luck. Harry spent a good 15 or more minutes simply leaning up-against the castle wall outside the Fat Lady's portrait before a seventh year he didn't know exited the doorway and he was able to grab the portrait, leaving it open until he could enter.

The first of his friends that aHarry found was Hermione. She was sitting on the couch by the fire and just staring into the flames, she also seemed to have developed a nervous-habit of tapping her fingers; Harry wasn't exactly sure what was wrong with her, but he knew this wasn't the typical-Hermione.

"'Ello Hermione!" Harry barely stopped himself from smirking as his friend jumped about a mile into the air at the sound of his voice.

She spun around and examined him for a couple seconds before her eyes widened in recognition and she launched herself at him, engulfing the unsuspecting boy in a huge bear-hug. "Harry! What happened to you? Where the Bloody Hell have you been?"

Stepping out of her arms Harry told her that he only wanted to explain this once and asked where Ron was. According to Hermione, Ron had managed to blow up most of the Potions Classroom Tuesday and was serving detentions every day until the end of the term next week.

He could see in Hermione's eyes and the determined set of her jaw that she wasn't going to let him rest until he told her his tale; forget whether Ron was around or not!

He sighed and rolled his eyes before plopping down onto one of the cushier chairs by the fireplace and deciding where to start. "Well….I suppose the story starts with Trevor the frog and the summoning charm….."

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Author's Note- Damn that chapter was hard to write! I thought I was gonna go crazy!

What do you think? Please tell me!


	4. Chapter 4

Author's Note- Thanks to my reviewers! (I got a whole 2 reviews for last chapter! Some people might not think that's so awesome, I know, but it makes me happy to get _**any**_ review.)

So….yeah, here's the next chapter.

Disclaimer-The first Harry Potter book came out _**long**_ before I was even born. The author, obviously, had to have been around to write the book. Infer anything you want, it doesn't really matter to me.

_CHAPTER 4_

_Champions keep playing until they get it right.__  
Billie Jean King_

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Monday before Hogwarts' students go home:

_Harry!_

_You won't believe what just happened! I happen to know a few Pro Quidditch players and one of them just found out about my freedom. He's playing in the World Cup this summer, and he said that he could get me in touch with the people I need to talk to to get brilliant seats. I talked to the people and they still have about 50 open tickets, because you can only get these tickets if you know players. I was thinking about getting 11 tickets: One for each you, me and Moony, One each for the other 6 Gryffindor House Quidditch Players, and one each for Ron and Hermione. What do you think?_

_Even if your team and friends don't want to go, I'm making sure that at least you, me, and Moony get to go; so no arguments!_

Harry briefly wondered exactly how Sirius knew he would argue about Sirius doing that for him, but decided to put it out of his mind and just thank Sirius when he saw him.

_Owl back once you get this, because I don't know how long these tickets will be available for._

_Sirius._

_P.S- Tell Ron, again, that I'm sorry about breaking his leg. Hope it's all healed._

Harry, literally, wanted to jump up and scream in joy so that everyone in the Great Hall would hear him, but somehow he found the necessary self-control to avoid that happening. Instead his jaw dropped and he also had to restrain himself from happy-dancing.

It was only about three weeks ago that it had been announced that Ireland and Bulgaria would be playing against each other for the title World Champions; and Harry found himself wondering who, exactly, Sirius could _possibly _know on one of those teams well enough that they would help him get that many tickets to the match.

After asking around to make sure that all his teammates, plus Ron and Hermione, would be able and willing to go to the World Cup, and after receiving seven "Hell Yes" answers (From Ron and the team) and one "I suppose it would be a good experience, even If I don't care for Quidditch all that much." (From Hermione), Harry was sending his reply back with Hedwig.

҉

The last of the school year passed without much fanfare.

Harry avoided Snape, simply because he wasn't too sure how he was going to treat Snape from now on. He wasn't sure he could hate the man after knowing he had been Lily's friend and therefore he _surely must_ have something decent about him, right? That, and now knowing more about James and Sirius'….antics back in school Harry realized that Snape had been a bit less unrealistic than Harry had ever imagined before; his father _was _truly and arrogant toe-rag in his earlier Hogwarts years.

Dumbledore never got a chance to look Harry in the eyes all week either, because Sirius had explained about the Headmaster's unfortunate, and quite frankly illegal, habit of using legilimency on students and until Sirius could teach Harry occlumency, the counter to legilimency; and Harry had decided that he didn't feel like having Dumbledore rifling through his mind.

Harry also had to ignore quite a few whispers in the hallways and idiotic questions about Sirius, but eventually the time to load the Hogwarts Express came and the students were on their way to their homes.

The train trip passed with only one encounter with Malfoy, in which Malfoy definitely came out the worse for wear, and plenty of rounds of exploding snap.

With about half an hour left until Harry assumed they'd be arriving at Kings Cross, Harry double checked with everyone who was planning to go with him and Siri to the World Cup that they all knew the Floo Address and would be able to get to his home. The plan was for everyone to Floo over two days before the Cup and that way they could all hang out together for a bit before going.

Harry had just finished telling Katie Bell the Floo address (Marauders Playground) when the train pulled into the station. After collecting his belongings from his compartment, where Ron and Hermione had waited for him, Harry exited the train with his two best friends and began his summer break; the first of the, hopefully, many that he was going to enjoy from now on.

҉

"Padfoot! Wake Up! The portkey leaves in fifteen minutes and if you aren't ready we're just going to leave you!" Harry banged on the door to Sirius' room one last time before giving up.

He could hear the sound of an annoyed groan through the door and took it to mean that Sirius was at least trying to roll his lazy arse out of bed.

If there was one thing Harry had learned about Sirius it was that the man was _not _a morning person. In fact, Sirius believed morning people, like Moony, should be sentenced to three hours of mandatory silence a day, at least.

It was actually a fairly common argument around the home of the remaining Marauders about why this would never work. Every morning, on those days Sirius was actually up in the morning hours, Padfoot would try to send his most powerful silencing charm at Moony; Moony has the natural reflexes of a werewolf and would therefore always avoid said silencing charm. He would then, just to aggravate Sirius, strike up the loudest, most senseless, conversation possible and ignore the glares coming from over the top of Sirius' fifth mug of coffee. Apparently, this has been tradition since their fourth year at Hogwarts.

They'd resumed the tradition easily and even now, only two weeks into the summer, it was getting old to Harry. He didn't know how they weren't tired of it yet.

Personally Harry hoped he never ended up with a tradition like that; even if it was jokingly, Harry didn't think he wanted to have daily fights with anyone. Well, anyone other than Malfoy.

Harry shook himself out of his thoughts as he arrived in the Dining Room and saw that, thankfully, all of his friends were awake and eating breakfast. He didn't exactly feel like trying to wake up anymore stubborn people.

Thinking back on when everyone had arrived, Harry remembered the awkwardness that had surrounded the group. Other than at Quidditch practices, none of them had really spent too much time together before. Most of the team were in different years and didn't really have all that much in common and for a while it had been a disaster. Harry understood 100% why Sirius had thought it would be a good idea for the entire Gryffindor team to come to the match, there was so much they could learn to use for the team from just watching a professional game, but for a while he had wondered what on earth was wrong with him for agreeing to this. It had come as a blessing when Sirius remembered a clearing in the nearby woods where they could play Quidditch. It was the perfect ice-breaker. After that they'd all been a bit more comfortable around each other.

And of course the team hadn't been entirely comfortable around Sirius at first, seeing as he had been thought of as a mass murderer for over a decade. For that matter, they'd been entirely shocked to see Professor Lupin again; that was one thing they most definitely had not been expecting. Harry wasn't exactly sure how he'd forgotten to mention Moony to them before, but none of the team really had a problem with him being a werewolf so it had all worked out.

It was _finally_ the day of the World Cup and the excitement was practically visible in the air. The group's portkey was going to be leaving in about ten minutes, so it was understandable that Harry was anxious to make sure Padfoot was ready to go. Right?

Harry sighed as he sat down to eat a bit of breakfast before they left. If Padfoot missed this portkey….Harry wasn't exactly sure what he'd do, but Sirius wouldn't like it.

Just as the Portkey began to glow blue, signaling thirty seconds 'til it left, Sirius raced into the room and, after grabbing a bit of toast from the table, and grabbed hold of the Portkey with everyone else.

When Moony began lightly laughing at him, Sirius asked "What?" in a rather undignified tone.

"Nothing," Moony replied, smirking "…It's just your shirt's on backwards and your fly's undone."

"Huh? Oh, Bloody Hell!" Just as Sirius looked down to check if Lupin was telling the truth, the portkey (a bit of rope) activated and they were flying back to England.

Upon their landing the group was still having a good laugh at Sirius' expense. Sirius, blushing slightly, turned his back on them and adjusted his appearance so that he was more…presentable.

They turned their portkey into the men standing where they had arrived and went to check into the campsite.

The muggle, Mr. Roberts, who ran the campsite directed them toward a space near the edge of the woods. As they went to their campsite, Sirius pointed out a few interesting tents and people that he recognized.

"That tent there is the Malfoys, only Lucius likes peacocks that much." Sirius showed them a palace-like tent with live peacocks roaming through the front yard.

"And that's the Fenwicks. They're nice people; always friendly, if a little senseless." He pointed out a cute little cottage with flowers in the windows.

Of course, not _every _tent was an epic fail, some were actually doing a fairly good job of looking inconspicuous. Then there were the tents that looked like their owners really did try, but just barely messed up in making them look muggle; they had the occasional chimney or weather vane.

Arriving at a plot of land with a sign proclaiming 'PADFOOT...and others', Harry couldn't hold in a laugh at the looks on the Weasley Twins' faces. It was then that he realized he had neglected to inform the twins about finding out the true identities of the Marauders.

After setting up the tents, while most of the group had gone to look around and go souvenir hunting, Harry pulled the twins aside and properly introduced them to their idols: Moony and Padfoot. Sirius was overjoyed to find out that these were the people who had both found the Map and taken over as the next generation of pranksters.

Harry was fairly sure that, though Padfoot's identity was certainly a shock, the twins were about to have heart attacks upon finding out about Professor Lupin. Apparently they had been under the impression that he was something of a stick in the mud; little did they know he was truly the mastermind behind the Map and making the more outrageous Marauder pranks actually work. Ideas had been Prongs and Padfoot's specialties, but Moony had been the one that figured out how to turn ideas into reality.

Strangely enough, Harry couldn't honestly say he saw any more of either the Twins or the remaining Marauders the rest of the day. He figured it was a safe bet to say that the Twins were interrogating them for ideas.

Just before sunset Sirius led everyone into the stands as the game was scheduled to start half an hour after sunset.

When the lady taking tickets looked at them in a mixture of disbelief and awe and told them to go straight up to the top of the stairs and take the door on the right, Harry couldn't stop himself from asking why exactly she looked like that.

Sirius explained that the box they were going to be seated in was essentially the Players Guest's Box. The box next to it was the Top Box where the Ministers and Announcers sat. When Katie asked how Sirius had gotten _those_ seats Sirius smiled like the cat that caught the canary and said something about being a Bulgarian's 'favorite cousin and only likeable family member on his mother's side'. No amount of questioning got him to tell them _which_ Bulgarian that might be….

In the box there weren't really seats so much as a giant luxurious lounge that, though from the outside it didn't look it, was suited to comfortably hold about 100 people.

One side of the box was decked out in red and the other was covered in green.

The box had many interesting people in it. Over on the Irish side, there was a group of six people (two girls and two boys in their twenties with two men probably in their forties) and they kept laughing like crazy for, as far as Harry could tell, no good reason. It didn't even seem like any of them had said, or done, anything! Harry wasn't sure what the joke was, but he was fairly sure it had something to do with someone in his group because a few of the people in that group kept looking in their direction.

One of the girls with the group of laughing people, she was probably in her early twenties and she had a really dark tan and dark brown hair with red and blonde undertones and she looked like an athlete (altogether she was very pretty, Harry noticed), kept glancing at Sirius and smiling at him. Sirius just looked confused, especially when she came over to talk to him. This made her friends laugh a lot more than they had been, and one of the two older men with the group scowl, seemingly jokingly, in Sirius' direction.

Harry didn't listen in on the conversation.

Instead he focused on the game, as it started just after the girl started talking to Sirius.

While the announcer, Ludo Bagman called out the names of the players Harry was looking for anyone with any family resemblance to Sirius, but he had no luck in figuring out who Sirius knew. After a few seconds of the actual game the entire issue was forgotten in favor of watching the enthralling match. Harry mostly observed the seekers, as he really couldn't care much less about the other players because he really wouldn't know all that much about anything special they'd do; all he knew was that he hoped to someday fly like Krum could.

Don't get me wrong, the Irish seeker was pretty great too, but Krum! Krum could fly more naturally than anyone Harry had ever seen. Harry especially enjoyed seeing the way Krum was so incredible at Feints, because that was something Harry had been thinking he should bring into his own games more. After all, what good was being a natural at dives if you don't use them to get ahead in the game?

Anyway, what little Harry did notice of the players other than the two seekers was enough to tell him that the Bulgarians may have been good enough to make it to the World Cup, but unless Krum caught the snitch _quick_ they had no chance of beating Ireland. Ireland's chasers and keeper were just too good; Bulgaria didn't seem to have a chance.

It was a fairly quick match, about the length of most Hogwarts games; no more than an hour long, probably not even that. The end was quick enough that if Harry hadn't been watching he might've missed it. The Irish seeker had taken to tailing after Krum and when Krum went into another dive, this one obviously real, they ended up racing for it.

The race for the snitch brought the two seekers dangerously close to the stands, and many people in the crowd would later swear that they could feel the wind from the players zooming by.

The small advantage of being the one to actually spot the snitch ended up giving Krum the edge he needed to win the race for the Snitch, but even the extra 150 points wasn't quite enough to let Bulgaria win.

The final score was 170-160 to Ireland.

The players, from both teams, all converged in the Top Box and the Cup was presented to Ireland. Harry wasn't sure whether he wanted to laugh or not at the sight of the Irish seeker being supported by his teammates, obviously too beat up to stand on his own but still looking glad to be on the winning side.

After the Cup was presented, and the stands gradually began to empty, the players all came over to their box to visit with their guests. Sirius was about to burst with excitement, probably from some silly scheme he had up his sleeve, and seemed to be going crazier by the second. He especially seemed to enjoy the look on the faces of the kids when he was approached by none other than Viktor Krum.

Krum good-naturedly put up with the gaping of the starry eyed youngsters, who really weren't much younger than him, and greeted Sirius like an old friend. He even seemed to know the girl that had been, still, standing by Sirius. Harry found out her name was Sheila when Krum took one look at how close Sirius was standing to her and threatened Sirius with the classic big-brother/overprotective-friend speech: basically, 'Keep your hands to yourself or you'll soon find you don't have any hands left.'

Sirius, ever curious, just had to ask how they knew each other.

Sheila was the one to answer him. "My school was in a Quidditch tournament a few years ago and because a friend of mine, Lukas, was on the team and got to bring a friend to the tournament and brought me, I got to watch as another friend of mine totally slammed Krum into the ground by using the Wronski Feint against him and then won the tournament for my school. The same thing happened the year after that, too. I think that's when Viktor finally decided to learn that Feint. But after the second tournament we all started talking and pretty much kept in touch after that. And here we are today."

Sirius didn't really have anything to say to that and responded, ever so eloquently, with "Oh. Cool."

Harry thought it was pretty cool to hear about how Krum had only started to use the Wronski Feint after having it used against him repeatedly by the same person. It just went to show that even legends, like Viktor Krum was sure to become, had to learn somewhere.

Krum laughed a bit at Sirius and then asked him something that didn't really make sense to anyone but Sirius. He asked if the plan was still going to happen.

If there's one thing about Sirius that the Gryffindor Quidditch team can tell you, it's that whenever Sirius gets that gleam in his eyes you should usually run and run far away. But, for once, that gleam didn't look dangerous; this time it seemed to spell excitement.

Sirius shook his head 'yes' to answer Krum's question, whatever it had meant, and turned to face Wood. He leaned in and whispered something to Oliver who immediately began to practically glow and, scarily, almost looked like he could jump into Sirius' arms and snog him senseless right there. Thankfully he didn't, Harry could only imagine the years of therapy he would need if they'd been forced to witness _that._ Imagine, his Quidditch team captain jumping his godfather *shiver*. Or better yet, don't imagine it; it would probably only lead to giving Harry nightmares.

Oliver Wood turned to face his team, now in full 'Captain-Mode', and commanded that they have a team conference away from prying ears.

Once they were huddled in a secluded area of the box, Wood finally let them in the big secret. "Harry, your guardian is amazing! He just told me that he asked Krum, and Krum agreed and got his whole team to agree to this, if they would be willing to let us play against them!"

Harry took a look at Sirius who was watching them with a Cheshire grin and found that somehow he could believe Sirius would do something like this. Sirius always managed to have crazy ideas like this.

"They'll beat us by a million points!" said Katie.

"Probably true-"

"But no one-"

"Ever said-"

"Gryffindors weren't-"

"Willing to take on a senseless challenge." Answered the Twins, in their ridiculous twin-speak.

The entire team agreed that this was definitely a once-in-a-lifetime kind of a deal and that they'd be fools to pass it up.

Wood announced for the team that they would definitely want to play against the Bulgarians, even though the Gryffindors knew they held no chance against a professional team.

Apparently word of this little impromptu match had spread to others in the box as well, because just Wood finished talking, another voice said "Hang on! We want to play as well; that last game didn't last nearly long enough and we're all anxious to get back out there."

Looking at who had spoken, Moran of the Irish team, Harry had the fleeting thought that he was proud of Oliver for not fainting, yet.

Author's Note- Yes, Sheila and her group will eventually be important; so don't ask. They'll come in later; much, much later (like around 5 more chapters? Maybe, I'm not sure yet. But it shouldn't be much longer until they show up again.).

Next Chapter should be up soon-ish.

Please review, even if just to tell me it's a crappy story.

21ShootingStars.


	5. Chapter 5

Disclaimer- J.K. Rowling owns the magical world of Harry Potter, I'm just glad she lets us play with him.

_CHAPTER FIVE_

_Act as if it were impossible to fail.  
- __Dorothea Brande_

One thing about Sirius Black is that no matter how well you think you know him he'll always have something else for you to be amazed to discover.

One such discovery for Harry was finding out that the Black family actually owns a broom company in the United States. And this broom company has just recently come out with a few prototypes of a broom to rival the Firebolt, known as the 'Galaxy Glider'.

The Galaxy Glider is an ebony broomstick that is charmed to have constellations appearing on the handle. It has every capability of the Firebolt, including the top speed of 200 kilometers per hour, except the reason it's not exactly on the market yet is that it sometimes has difficulty stopping; and any good Quidditch player can tell you that sometimes stopping is pretty important.

The Black's broomstick company is _fairly positive_ that they've worked that kink out, though. So it should be no problem that Sirius got hold of seven of them and is now letting the Gryffindor Quidditch Team use them against the national teams of Bulgaria and Ireland, right? No problem at all….

"Alright team, this is it; the big one. I'm likely never going to get to play with any of you ever again after tonight, so let's try to make our final matches together good ones, alright? It doesn't matter if we win; heck, just scoring one goal against either of these teams would be a victory. This match isn't going to count for anything except our Gryffindor pride, so we're going to have fun while we do this as long as we believe in ourselves.

"Our lovely chasers are amazing as always and never fail to make the team proud. And, Harry, there's a reason you're the youngest seeker Hogwarts has had in a century; show Krum that he's not the only one with talent! I know for a fact that we have two of the best beaters ever, because you Weasleys are like human bludgers yourselves."

"Stop, Olliekins, you're gonna make me blush!" interrupted one of the twins, probably Fred, smirking at Oliver.

"Oh, Shut up, you two! Just go out there and give it your all, team! Good Luck!"

"Wait! What about you Oliver? We all know you're great, too, you need to give yourself more credit!" Said George, probably trying to calm Oliver down a little, because he looked like he was about to go into panic-attack/crazy-captain mode.

"Right, whatever. Let's go!"

Sirius couldn't stop the laughter that escaped him at the sight of the Gryffindor team whooping and breaking out of their huddle before, with reckless abandon, they leaped off the edge of the box and seated themselves on their new brooms in midair before soaring out into the middle of the field; most of the team laughing gleefully all along. Neither could the other occupants of the box when the Bulgarians shrugged and copied them, albeit in a slightly more dignified manner.

And, thus, the game began.

It was thrilling, going toe-to-toe against one of the best teams in the world. Not that the Gryffindors were doing all that well, but it was the idea that counted.

Fred and George were actually giving the Bulgarians a run for their money; Harry had always known the twins were brilliant, but seeing them like this was great. They were flying with a joy Harry had never seen and Harry was convinced, now, more than ever, that they must have some mental link because of the way their work seemed so coordinated.

Okay, so, to be honest, the game wasn't going too well for Hogwarts. It was actually going about like expected; by twenty minutes in the Bulgarians had a 170-30 lead, and Harry had to admit it wasn't looking like the Gryffindors were going to catch up soon.

The snitch was proving terribly evasive; Harry'd only spotted it twice, and when he had started chasing it he'd been cut off by bludgers once and a Bulgarian chaser the second.

His only consolation was that Krum wasn't faring much better.

Harry was flying in a loop well above the pitch and was just above the Gryffindor goalposts, and he could see Krum somewhere near the ground beneath the Bulgarian goalposts, when he saw it a third time. It was pretty much in the exact center of the field, and Krum had seen it too. They locked eyes for a brief second before they were off. This time Harry didn't see anyone in the way, and his attention was focused solely on the glittering golden ball fluttering around. It was making joyous little circles, unconcerned about the happenings around it.

Harry was having the time of his life as he zoomed towards the Snitch.

As he neared the Snitch, he chanced half a glance at Krum and saw him closing in at a similar rate to Harry's own speed. The way they were going, it looked like they were on a collision course, aimed right for each other.

It was a thrill only comparable to Harry's first Quidditch match and all the 'adventures' he and his friends had gotten into over the years.

Only five meters from the Snitch Harry reached as far as he could and saw Krum doing the same. They were equal distances from the snitch and Krum's arms were longer. Harry willed the Glider to go faster, even though it was already pushing its limits.

He felt his hand close around the cold gold and a blink of an eye later Krum's Hand had closed over the top of Harry's. They were ripped apart rather abruptly when Harry realized that, though he'd succeeded in catching the snitch, his broom _wasn't _stopping when he tried to make it stop.

Holding tight for dear life, Harry aimed his broom straight up into the air to try to avoid crashing. The crazy thing wasn't even slowing down.

He decided there was only one thing to do. He'd have to get close to either the ground or one of the spectator boxes and jump off of the out of control broomstick.

Looking around frantically, Harry noticed he was only a few meters from the box where his godfather still stood, watching with wide eyes. He maneuvered the broom as close to the stands as he could and, when the broom closed in on the box he closed his eyes and leaped from the broom into the box.

The broom didn't even let the fact that it was now rider-free deter it. It just kept going along at its top-speed, making wild turns around the pitch and causing the other players to zoom out of its path.

Harry rolled for a bit after landing with an aching _thud_ in the box. Once he stopped moving, he opened his eyes and looked around. He locked eyes with Sirius who was running over toward him and said, simply, "I think I prefer my Firebolt, Padfoot."

Sirius laughed in relief after seeing that Harry was alright. "I think I agree. What happened?"

"I caught the Snitch!...But then I couldn't make the broom stop; I don't know what I was doing wrong!"

Ron, who had rushed over with Sirius, couldn't help but chuckle at Harry's lost expression. Sirius decided to be helpful, for once, and tell Harry what probably went wrong."Remember, those brooms were just hitting the 'testing' phase. The inventors thought they'd worked out the kinks with the brakes, but I suppose they haven't. It wasn't your fault, Harry."

After the Gryffindor seeker's spectacular crash it was decided that Gryffindor wouldn't be playing in anymore games that night, no matter how much Harry protested that he was fine. The final score of 200-180 was a bit of a disappointment to Harry, as it was only the second game he'd ever lost and the first in which he'd caught the snitch and they'd still lost, but it seemed Harry was the only one who was disappointed. All his teammates were still glowing from excitement from the game when they were on their way back to the tent and got approached by a man in his late 30's who was doing a shockingly good job a wearing muggle clothes.

His torn jeans and t-shirt made it clear that he had experience with the muggle world that most wizards around the World Cup didn't.

Sirius was on his guard and, inconspicuously of course, stepped between the unknown man and all the underage children that Sirius was responsible for, but there was no need to worry about the man. Sirius recognized him just a few moments later.

"Knightley?" Sirius asked, a stupefied look on his face.

"That's right, Black; it would be a shame if you didn't recognize your old Quidditch captain anymore."

"I reckon my excuse would've been a fairly good one if I hadn't recognized you. What are you up to nowadays?"

"Quidditch, mostly. I still play for the Appleby Arrows." The man, Knightley, replied. "Would you like to come over to my tent for a spot of tea, there's something I'd like to ask you about."

"Err," Sirius hesitated, looking back at all the people he was with, before answering "sure. You guys can get back to the tent without me, right?"

"I'm sure we'll manage just fine without you, Sirius." Moony commented before leading everyone away in the direction f the group's campsite.

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_AUTHOR'S NOTE-_ It was awful, I know! But it's something, and it proves I'm not abandoning this; quite the opposite actually, because I have about 250 pages worth of hand-written chapters. That's like well into chapter 50 once I type it, maybe more. And when I type I tend to write a lot more than I wrote the first time around on paper, so I have a LOT of work ahead of me with typing up this story. Be patient, because I lose focus easily and work on all my other stories too.


	6. Chapter 6

Disclaimer- I'm not JKR. Hard to believe isn't it? Or NOT.

_҉_

_All life is an experiment. The more experiments you make the better._

_-__Ralph Waldo Emerson_

_CHAPTER SIX_

Harry followed the sound of piano music to his godfather, who he'd been looking for for nearly an hour. Sometimes the Marauder's Playground was just too big; it was way too difficult to find people in it.

'Maybe I'll ask Remus to teach me how to make a map like the Marauder's Map for this place.' Harry thought as he walked into the large room that the music was emanating from.

Upon entering the room, he decided it was, yet another, room that he hadn't seen yet. It looked like a small-ish ballroom with murals depicting Greek myths lining the walls. At the far end of the ballroom there was a stage with the oddest looking piano Harry had ever seen.

Harry walked up behind Sirius and looked at the sheet music for what he was playing. He knew Sirius could sense him in the room because of the way his shoulders stiffened before relaxing again and the twitch of Sirius' head making it seem like he was stopping himself from glancing behind him.

Harry had just finished reading what the song was, Ballade for Adeline, when Sirius made a mistake that was obvious even to Harry's untrained ears and quit playing.

"Damn." He mumbled to himself, before turning around to Harry and saying "My mother put me through piano lessons for years before Hogwarts and, on the rare occasion I was home, continued them throughout my school years. It was probably the best thing she ever did for me. Before Azkaban I could play this song blindfolded; Mother adored it, and secretly I didn't mind playing it for her because it was one of my favorites to play. Those were the only times we weren't clawing at each other's throats, when I played the piano for her."

"It sounded really good to me, but I do have a question." Harry said.

"Okay, what is it?"

"What is going on with your piano, it's really weird looking."

Sirius laughed, "This piano was the love of my life fifteen years ago. I bought it with some of what Uncle Alphard left me. It's a Schimmel Pegasus. There aren't very many of them around, and few of them are this particular color."

Harry laughed at the adoring expression on Sirius' face as he ran his fingers gently over the sleek Ferrari red piano.

"But I know that isn't why you came to find me, and I guess I can tell you what you really want to know now that everyone's gone."

"Finally!"

"Yeah, I know I was being mean withholding information like that, but after the fiasco with the Death Eaters showing up I didn't really want this to be public knowledge. That guy who I went off to talk with? He was Andrew Knightley, seeker for the Appleby Arrows. What he wanted to talk about had to do with his team; see, Knightley plans to retire in the after next season so the Arrows are holding try-outs on August 17th. The try-outs aren't public knowledge; you have to be invited by either a team member or the team's scouts. Knightley saw you going against Krum and, as I'm your guardian, he asked me to let you try for the spot."

"Are you serious?"

"Always." Sirius smirked

"Ugh. That really does get old Padfoot. Wait, but why didn't you want the others to hear this?"

"Because, I got freaked out by the Death Eaters and I wasn't sure if I was going to let you try-out."

"Why would you not let me try out?"

"The try-outs are closed to the public, so no one who isn't trying for the team will be allowed in. I wouldn't be allowed in. With the Death Eaters becoming active again, I worry what would happen if I allowed you to go without anyone to protect you. Then if you were to make the team, you would have to balance school with the team's schedule. Do you see why I might worry about letting you do this?"

"Yeah, Sirius, I get it…but I would like to try for the team if you'll let me."

"Maybe, I'll think about it. There's something else I want to talk to you about, too." Sirius look uncharacteristically nervous and that sent warning bells off in Harry's mind.

"What is it?"

"You know why I hate Dumbledore? Good, I'm glad I don't have to go over that again. So you can understand what I'm about to say without getting mad…I don't want you to go to Hogwarts next year."

"NO WAY! I have to go to Hogwarts; my friends are all at Hogwarts!"

"Please hear me out, Harry. I've got a friend on the other side of the world, in North America, who is known as THE best person to go to if you want to be homeschooled. He's worked with people who have gone on to change the world and people who become incredible duelists and even people who'll be Minister of Magic. I know that people in Britain swear by Hogwarts, but in North America they swear by Zac Ames."

"I don't want to be Minister of Magic or change the world; I just want to be just Harry, a nobody."

"You can't be a nobody, Harry. People are already out to kill you." Harry didn't like the serious note in Padfoot's voice. It made it seem like he wasn't going to let Harry have much choice in this.

"Do I get a choice about this?"

"Not really; but how about this, we can go to visit Zac and if you hate him then you don't have to let him be your teacher. Deal?"

"Fine, but I'm just letting you know ahead of time that I'm going to hate him."

Sirius chuckled. "It's pretty difficult to hate Zac. He's got a certain…charisma that people fall in love with immediately."

"Just how do you know him?" Harry asked, always curious about Sirius' life.

"Oh, he married my aunt after she cheated on her husband with him and had his child and her husband divorced her. Their daughter still thinks she's a Black by birth, too."

"Who's their daughter?" Harry didn't really expect to recognize the name, but it was always fun to know these things.

Sirius' eyes lit up with mischief. "Narcissa Malfoy."

҉…҉…..҉

҉…..҉

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Author's Note-Voila! I know it's short, but I'm throwing a pool party and guests are due to start arriving in about three minutes, so I want to get this out now.

21ShootingStars


	7. Chapter 7

Disclaimer- By now, I really hope you know J.K. Rowling owns Harry Potter. I, however, am not the amazingly talented JKR. I am only able to claim the things that come out of my mind and if you've read the H.P books, like I hope you have, then you should easily be able to identify what all is mine and what is J.K. Rowling's.

"_I don't care if you lick windows, take the special bus, or occasionally pee on yourself…You hang in there sunshine, you're friggin special."- I stole this off a picture on one of my best friends' facebook._

_CHAPTER SEVEN_

"Really?"

"Yep. Aunt Violet told me herself, a long time ago; the first summer after I was sorted into Gryffindor my parents decided I was too much of a disgrace to stay with my family the whole summer, so they sent me off to live with Zac and Aunt Vi for most of that summer. After that I tried to stay in contact with her, because she wasn't crazy like most of my family."

"So they just told you that Mrs. Malfoy is their daughter but doesn't know it?"

"I don't remember exactly how we got onto the topic of Narcissa, but, yeah, they don't really hide it. But let's not get off the original topic; Zac and Aunt Vi are expecting us at their house tomorrow at 11 AM, so with the time difference between their location and here we need to leave at…about 4:30 tomorrow afternoon, our time.

"Oh, and you should pack whatever you feel you'll need in the next few weeks, because even if you don't want Zac to be your teacher I still want to stay in my townhouse near where they live for the rest of the summer. It'll be great you'll see. A real vacation; they live on an island in the Atlantic Ocean and my townhouse is right on the beach. You, me and Moony; we'll have a blast."

"How many houses do you have, Sirius?" Harry asked, curious. He'd never thought to ask Sirius about that.

"A few…Honestly I'm not positive, but I think four: the one on the island, this one, Grimmauld Place, and that little cottage in Hogsmeade."

Harry wasn't sure how it was possible to not know how many houses one might own, but he didn't feel like listening to the long-winded explanation that he was sure Sirius would give if he asked about it. Sirius was definitely fond of his long-winded explanations.

He excused himself to go pack for this vacation, which, truth be told, he was a little excited about. The Dursleys had never taken him anywhere near a beach, which was a little depressing if you thought about it considering the fact that they'd been living on an island. The nearest thing to seeing the beach Harry had ever experienced was the day he finally got his Hogwarts letter; that night he'd been in a hut on an island, but it really couldn't count as much of a vacation.

҉

That night, Harry's sleep was plagued with nightmares of the night of the World Cup.

_Harry was asleep in his bed, dreaming a dream he would later forget, when the screaming started. It caused him to jerk awake and out of bed in an instant._

_His first instinct was to run off and try to help whoever was so obviously in trouble. Thankfully, Sirius did not allow that to happen; the second Harry took off running toward the campsite, Sirius had grabbed him by the back of his shirt and stopped him. He told all the kids to run into the woods and stick close to Oliver, who was the only one legally old enough to do magic, and hide until he contacted them._

_Sirius and Remus took off in the direction Harry had tried to go to begin with; right to the source of the screaming, which could now be identified as a family of muggles floating in midair along with a crowd of witches and wizards fleeing flaming tents._

_It terrified Harry to no end, being unable to help while watching his guardian leap headfirst into the trouble. Being unable to _know_ what was happening was also grating on his nerves._

_But there was no way he could lead all his friends into this level of obvious danger; and there could be no doubt that they _would_ follow him if he chased after Sirius and Remus. They were all Gryffindors, after all. They would follow without a second thought._

_So he stayed with the group and ran into the woods. _

_What followed was some of the most unbelievably frustrating fifteen minutes of Harry's life. There was no word from Sirius. There was no contact from Moony._

_After what seemed an eternity, an acid green light filled the dark, night sky. The source of the light was a ghastly, green, skull with a snake protruding from its mouth that was filling up the sky._

_Within seconds the sounds of the screaming, which had nearly died out, redoubled again. They were screams of absolute terror._

_Even the more knowledgeable members of the Gryffindor Quidditch team were looking quite concerned at this turn of events. This worried Harry more than he wanted to let on. He'd never seen Oliver look this shaken, not even when Harry had lost that game against Hufflepuff because of the dementors._

_Five __**long**__ minutes later a glowing silver entity, which Harry recognized as a Patronus, appeared in the clearing where the Gryffindors had taken cover._

_The wolf Patronus, in Moony's hoarse voice, instructed them to stay exactly where they were and wait for him and Padfoot to arrive and guide them back to camp._

_Barely another tense minute later, Padfoot, in dog form, arrived with Professor Lupin close behind._

_If anyone thought it odd that a large, black, Grim like, dog had just turned into Sirius Black, then they didn't say anything._

_҉_

The following morning passed in a way much the same as all the others since Harry, Sirius and Remus began living together; Harry did whatever he felt like all morning until Remus and he decided Sirius had slept enough at around 11:30 and woke him up, then they went through the daily ritual of arguing over Sirius' fifth- or fifteenth- cup of coffee, before finally having any sort of civil conversation.

It was the afternoon that really made things interesting. Sirius had failed to pack the night before, so he was running around like a chicken with its head cut off trying to pack all the items he deemed 'necessary'. If you take into account the fact that Sirius was convinced Harry would agree to remain living in North America to be taught by Zac, that's quite a bit of stuff that he felt the need to pack.

By 4:30 Sirius was fairly sure he had everything he could want to bring.

Harry was fairly sure Sirius had packed everything that the three of them owned, but maybe that's a bit of an exaggeration.

Anyway, the three of them managed to be gathered together and ready to leave by 4:30.

"Alright, you lot, this is how this is gonna work. Since neither of you have been there before, we're not even going to try apparating and we'll use my portkey. It'll take us a few blocks away from my Aunt Vi's house. Got it? Good, now grab on."

Harry and Remus followed Sirius' instruction and grabbed hold of the portkey that looked like a muggle drivers' license.

Within seconds they all felt that familiar pulling of a hook behind their navels as they were swept away on what would soon become a life-changing adventure.

҉

AUTHOR'S NOTE- Voila!

Review and tell me your thoughts? Please? I'll love you for ever and ever if you do!


	8. Chapter 8

Author's Note- My apologies, I know it has been _forever_ since I updated. Life is hectic. Found out in March that I seriously have a mental disease, spent the last couple months pretty much having an internal debate concerning my aforementioned disease. Finally think I put it behind me and I'm moving on, though I'm not all better. Thanks, Colonel B. for reporting me (ah, sarcasm…)

Disclaimer- You know the drill by now. The only things I own are the original ideas.

_I have never started a poem yet whose end I knew. Writing a poem is discovering.-Robert Frost_

_CHAPTER EIGHT_

When Harry had first used a portkey, he found it entirely unpleasant. This experience with a portkey? He found this one to be entirely torturous. The hook behind his navel was persistently tugging in much the same manner as it had for the past few minutes. Realistically, Harry was positive that it hadn't been more than ten minutes, but it definitely felt like it had been at least half an hour.

His head was spinning, his body was flipping, his stomach felt like he imagined it would if he were being stabbed. Why did Sirius not bother warning anyone about how awful this portkey would be? Harry knew that they were heading somewhere near Florida, in the United States, but other than that he didn't know how far away their destination was. Apparently long-distance portkeys were far more miserable than their counterparts.

The end came without warning. All three of them fell onto their backs when the portkey dumped them onto the ground. Harry was content to just lie down and let his body get used to the feeling of relief that accompanied the end of the trip. He buried his bare fingers in the warm sand that was spread all around and beneath his body. It took a moment, but the realization finally hit him. _Sand!_ His eyes opened in a flash and he had to close them again just as quickly when the bright sunlight infiltrated his mind.

Now that his brain had acknowledged exactly what surrounded him, he wondered how the realization had evaded him for so long. The light was still piercing through his closed eyelids and the humid air was far hotter and muggier than anything he was used to experiencing in his home country. Harry gradually allowed himself to open his eyes, slowly this time.

The view that met his eyes was spectacular and not something he would be forgetting anytime soon. Harry heard Sirius and Remus laughing at his slack-jawed expression, but he paid them no attention. It was everything he had ever imagined a tropical getaway could be. Huge palm trees, brightly colored birds, people lounging in the sand.

"What do you see, Harry?" The teen jumped at the sound of a voice right behind him and turned to see Remus standing only about a foot away from him.

"What do you mean? I see a beach."

"This place looks different to everyone. It's nicknamed Paradise by the locals, because it turns into every individual's idea of paradise. Most people who come here never leave because they become so entranced by their first glimpse of their personal idea of paradise; there are plenty of rumors about this area of the world because no one ever seems to come back when they come near here."

"What are the rumors?" Harry knew how out of hand rumors could get from personal experience and wondered if these were too terrible.

"Oh, just silly explanations. Some say that this is the place where Atlantis was and that leftover technology from Atlantis is attracting people and keeping them here. Others believe that there are sea monsters making snacks out of travellers, while still more people will swear that Aliens are coming by and swooping up victims in their UFO's to experiment on them." Sirius joked. "The real explanation is all around you. Look over there, what do you see?" Sirius grabbed Harry's shoulder and turned him toward a group of people playing a game of volleyball down the beach.

"People. Padfoot, what are you going on about now? They're just people playing a game." Harry was confused, again, and he had a feeling that Sirius had a point, but he surely wasn't catching on to the point.

"They are not _just_ people, Pup. They're Veela, and they are the reason this island is so enthralling. This place is known as The Bermuda Triangle to muggles, but to the Veela its home. Paradise is owned by the Veela and this is their sanctuary. Veela don't _have_ to live here, but they can if they want. Most choose to live their lives in peace here rather than face the prejudice of the outside world.

"I'm sure you remember the fiasco at the World Cup? That happened because Veela have a natural aura that attracts people. Their aura tends to get them in trouble when they go around people who aren't Veela because we feel a natural desire to be around them as long as possible. The only way they can keep hundreds of people from always trying to be their best friends is to force their aura to change a little; that change is what makes people desire them. When Zac told me all of this, he said that it is usually more tolerable to deal with a few lusty stares rather than a lot of unwanted buddies.

"Well, in their own homeland they see no reason to withhold their natural influence and so whenever muggle travelers come near this place they tend to get pulled in and have a sudden desire to stay here. That's where the rumors come from; muggles find it easier to believe that people are being abducted by aliens than it is to imagine that everyone who comes near here would just want to stay."

"So…Your aunt Violet is married to a Veela?" Harry asked.

Sirius gave a huge barking laugh. "That's the only thing have to ask after all I just told you? Yes, Zac is a pure Veela. Narcissa Malfoy is half-Veela and her son, Draco, is actually a little more than half-Veela because the Malfoys have been a Veela family for generations."

Harry mentally filed that little bit of information away for further thought, maybe he could use it next time Malfoy insulted Hermione for her heritage? Of course, Harry didn't think there was anything wrong with having Veela heritage, but it was obviously something that the Malfoys kept under the radar.

Sirius led the way over to his aunt's home; they walked about a kilometer down the beach, on a path that Sirius seemed to know by heart considering the way he was walking backwards as he lead the others and told stories of his time here as a child.

By the time they stopped in front of a little peach house, Harry was convinced that Sirius either had eyes in the back of his head or really did know the path by heart. He didn't even have to glance behind him to know when to stop because he was in front of the house.

Sirius led the way up the brick pathway to the front door and knocked on the door, looking like this was the most exciting thing he had done in ages. The way he was bouncing on his heels and grinning like a maniac made it clear he was looking forward to seeing his aunt more than he had let on. He tipped his head back and inhaled deeply, taking in the sweet scent of the bell-shaped flowers on the vine that twirled around the house's columns mixed with the heavy smell of the purple roses lining the front porch. It was clear Sirius was remembering something, most likely how he helped Violet plant those very roses nearly twenty-five years ago, by the way his eyes were clearly darting around underneath his closed eyelids as he looked like he was inhaling deep enough that he would soon float.

After a few moments a woman who seemed to be about the same age as Professor McGonagall opened the door. Harry's first impression of the woman was that she looked like what he'd always imagined a grandparent would be. She was petite, standing a few inches shorter than Harry, and had a heart shaped face surrounded by brown, shoulder length, curls. Her face had laugh lines and her blue-specked mercury eyes were full of a mischief Harry had only ever seen before in Sirius. There was no doubt in Harry's mind that this was Sirius aunt Violet. Harry also had a sneaking suspicion that she was the one to teach Sirius his joking ways.

"Well, look here! I haven't seen you in a while, Siri." She walked out of the house and nearly tackled Padfoot in a giant bear-hug. "Well, aren't you going to introduce me to these two?"

"Sorry, Aunt Vi. This is Harry, my son," her eyes opened in shock and she shot Sirius an accusing look, obviously asking with her eyes 'How could you not tell me you had a child?' but Sirius continued on as if he hadn't noticed "and this is Remus Lupin, my best friend and fellow Marauder.

"It's nice to meet you both." She skipped right over the usual handshake and went straight after the both of them with hugs similar to the one she had bestowed on Sirius earlier "Come on in, I want to know all about you fellows. Sirius has clearly neglected to tell me a few key people in his life recently," At this she eyed Harry, obviously still put out about not knowing Sirius had become a father. Harry was pretty sure that Sirius should have said something about him being adopted, but he kept his mouth shut because it appeared Sirius wasn't willing to let his aunt know that minor detail. "but I can't say I'm surprised; he never did like to talk about anyone but himself." It was an obvious jab at Sirius' slightly inflated ego, but Sirius didn't rise to the bait as he knew it was only a joke.

Once Violet Ames had the three of them settled into the comfortable chairs in her sitting room, she bustled off to call for her husband to come in from the backyard and greet their guests.

Immediately after she left, Remus was the one to ask the question that was forefront on both his and Harry's minds. "Pads, why is she acting like you just didn't contact her recently? It's like she doesn't know about Azkaban."

Sirius looked down at his lap, suddenly sheepish. "Well…..I was planning to tell her right away when we got here. It's not the kind of thing you tell family about in a letter; and I'm the only one in Britain who knows where she is, so obviously no one else could have told her while I was locked away."

"Are you serious?" Remus whispered in a harsh voice. "And don't even go there." He added upon seeing that Sirius was going to reply with his customary 'Always.'

"Please, guys, she's always been so proud of me; I've decided I don't want her to know, I can't tell her." Sirius looked miserable at the thought of lying to his beloved aunt in such a way, but he obviously couldn't stand the thought of facing her if she was disappointed with him for being put in Azkaban.

"Sirius, I'm sure she wouldn't be disappointed in you for something you had no control over; she would want to know about that part of your life. You need to tell her." Sirius shook his head back and forth nearly violently. "Alright, If you're sure then we'll play along and follow your lead. Right, Harry?" Sirius breathed a sigh of relief at Moony's words.

Harry nodded his agreement just as Violet came back into the room with a man trailing behind her.

"Gentlemen, I'd like you to meet my husband Zac Ames. Zac, this is Remus, Sirius' friend, and this young man is Harry, Sirius' son."

"Nice to meet you, Mr. Ames." Harry and Remus said at the same time.

"Please, call me Zac. It's nice to meet the both of you."

Zac Ames was a tall man, well over six feet tall, and he easily towered over Violet. Regardless of the fact that he seemed kind, he was very intimidating; there was something about him that leaked danger. But it wasn't the 'run away, get the hell away from this man before he kills me' kind of danger. It was more of an 'I can tell this man could wipe the floor with Albus Dumbledore and Lord Voldemort at the same time' kind of danger. His shaggy, platinum blonde hair hung just to the top of his eyes and Harry could see a bit of an adventure seeking personality shining through the man's honey eyes.

Once the introductions were behind them, Zac finally brought up the main reason for their visit to Paradise.


	9. Chapter 9

_**GRR! I ALREADY WROTE THIS CHAPTER A LONG TIME AGO, BUT MY EVIL MICROSOFT WORD DELETED IT. That doesn't make for a happy author. I couldn't stand redoing a chapter I'd just written so I put this story aside for a while and worked on **_The Ice Inside Your Soul._** I am so sorry for the delay. **_This is going to be shorter than I planned, mostly because I found that it grated on my every nerve to rewrite this. Don't worry, I'm not sacrificing anything important to the story.

Disclaimer-*Pulls out ID, looks at name* Nope, I guess I'm not J.K.R. *sighs* Too bad for me….

"_Experience: that most brutal of teachers. But you learn, my God do you learn.__"  
C. S. Lewis_

_CHAPTER NINE_

"So, Sirius, you didn't really tell me much about what you wanted me to teach Harry? What I mean is, do you want me to teach him up through his….oh, what do you Brits call it…NEWT exam level? Or is this just a bit of tutoring in a difficult class? I need to know these sorts of things." Zac asked.

"Well, _I_ was hoping we could convince Harry to leave England and have you be his teacher all the way up through his NEWT level, but this git," Sirius pointed to Harry and ignored his Aunt's exclamation of 'Sirius! You can't talk about a child that way!' "doesn't want to leave Hogwarts and all its _lovely_ inhabitants. We've got a deal that he'll let you teach him as much as possible this summer and if he still doesn't like the idea of leaving Hogwarts then I'll let him go back."

"Ok…Harry, do you not want to be here, because if that's it then I think even trying to teach you would be a waste of everyone's time." Zac didn't sound like he approved of people who were content to be stupid, so Harry rushed to assure him otherwise.

"Oh, no! It's not that I don't want to learn, I do! I just don't want to be away from everyone I know; I never had a friend anywhere except Hogwarts and I don't want to miss anything with them. I just…can't imagine not being around my friends when I should be."

Harry was being honest when he said that. He truly wanted to learn and he understood Sirius' point that he needed to be able to defend himself. His problem was leaving behind the people he cared about. After all, if he just up and disappeared from school his only friends might forget about him, right? Where would he be then?

"Alright...So you'd like this to be just an 'until school starts' arrangement? Hmm…well, what if I had a better idea? One that would give you all the time you need to learn everything you need without worrying about missing a single moment of Hogwarts?"

Harry didn't have a clue how _that_ was going to happen, but if Zac could figure it out, then he would agree. "I suppose that would be fine with me, but how would something like that work exactly?"

"Do you know anything about Veela traditions?"

Harry had _no_ idea what that had to with anything, but he answered honestly "I'm afraid not."

"One of our most important traditions involves education. Most Veela children will attend a school from age eleven until age fifteen. The summer after their fifth year of schooling, they take a test that is designed to tell us what they are capable of, that way they can be trained in ways specific to their needs. Now, this isn't your average test; instead of answering questions, a person will put a few drops of their blood, which holds part of their magical essence, on a piece of paper. They then perform a simple spell that allows the paper to examine what is in their magic. Often, upon taking this test children will discover things that they never dreamed of. One such child was my niece, Claire. She found out that she had the ability to send people through time."

Zac just let them take in what they'd just heard and imagine the possibilities of what he'd said.

Remus was the first to comment. "Are you saying that your niece could possibly send the three of us back in time so that we could teach Harry properly and not worry about time restraints?"

"That's exactly what I was hinting at."

҉

As Claire opened the portal to the past, Harry's hair began to whip back and forth because of the wind that suddenly surrounded him.

"You three are sure you know what you're doing?" Claire called over the sound of the wind, for about the third time in as many minutes.

"Yes!" The three called.

They were waiting until the portal gained enough power to transport them through the past. It was currently swirling and dark with the occasional burst of light coming through the darkness to blind them all. Once the portal began to glow yellow, they were supposed to all grasp hands and walk into it. The were to take seven steps in and just wait for the magic to do its job, which supposedly took only a few seconds after the seventh step. They would be dumped out of the portal and right back to this very spot, however far into the past the portal decided to send them.

As if the trio's affirmative to Claire's question had been a cue, the portal began to glow a pale yellow.

They grasped hands and began the walk into the portal. They did their best to ignore the feeling that they were being pulled in a dozen directions, because Claire had warned them about this and told them it was only an illusion. Each step became more difficult than the last, feeling like lead weights were being added to their legs as they walked, but the trio trudged on.

Stopping after they finally took that seventh step, all three of the time-travellers felt as if all those weights were removed and they could float. The floating sensation was soon ended as the ground they were standing on dropped out from beneath their feet.

They landed with a thud and Harry took a moment to get reacquainted with the feeling of having his stomach back where it belonged instead of trying to come out through his throat before he opened his eyes.

҉….҉….҉

҉…҉

҉

Author's Note- WHOO! Now the real story can begin! I feel I should warn you, from here on out the story is completely AU. Evil will become the right, Harry gets new friends, Harry gets some awesome skills, he learns some family history, and he seriously has good reason to Hate Dumbledore.

I, for one, am excited about this. Are you? Tell me about it in a review, please?

21ShootingStars.


	10. Chapter 10

_Author's Note- I know, I know. It has been 9 months since I updated. I had given up on this, but I think I'll be working on it again. I believe that I, in a depressed rage, threw away my handwritten rough draft of this story. Luckily I still remember the basics of what I intended for it. Here goes nothing…._

The light of the sun glinting off the white sand and blue water was enough to blind Harry. His eyes took what felt like ages to adjust. Once he could see properly again, Harry noticed that he was on the same beach that he had landed on the first time he arrived in Paradise. Next to him, Remus and Sirius were having the same feeling of déjà vu. They all sat there for an immeasurable length of time, letting it sink into their minds that the three of them really had travelled back to an unknown point in the past.

Claire had explained to the three of them that time travel to any point more than a few weeks back was very unpredictable and that there was no way that she or anyone else could know exactly how far back they would be sent. The trio had taken her warning seriously, but knew that it would be worth it. They trusted her when she told them that time magic had a way of working out so that those who knew what they were doing when meddling with it were usually sent to where they needed to be.

That didn't mean, however, that the realization that they truly were in an unknown time was a very good feeling for any of them; they all sat around in a daze as the knowledge hit them.

Remus was the first to snap out of the daze. He immediately cast a charm that would cause the time and date to be written in the air in large, floating numbers and letters. WEDNESDAY. 19. 11. 1986. 6:31 PM.

The three men stared at the information disbelievingly.

Sirius was the first to be able to croak out a response to the information. "Eight years? We went back eight years? I don't believe it."

Harry was not sure what to think of this turn of events. He was expecting to go back no more than two or three years. "I'm only supposed to be six years old. I don't even know about magic yet. There is a younger version of me that is probably sitting in my cupboard at the Dursley's right now. This is weird, and I'm not entirely sure I like it."

"Hey, don't worry about it. There is a younger version of me sitting in a cell in Azkaban right now. I say that we just take these years that we've got and make them count for more than they did the first go. Alright?" Sirius was determined to make this trip to the past a useful one, and if the three of them sat there allowing the knowledge of where the other versions of themselves were at this time to overwhelm them he knew that they would never get anything done. They were here for a reason, and he wasn't going to allow them to forget about it.

"Sirius is right, Harry. Let's get out of here and go find Zac. Remember, he told us to find his younger self and give him the letter explaining what our plan was." Reminded Remus, who was always the one to remember and stick to the plan.

And with that, the three were off. They walked the familiar path to the Ames' home, all the while wondering what exactly this trip into the past would bring.

.

Zac and Violet Ames were delighted to see their beloved nephew Sirius.

They had been quite concerned when he had not shown up to visit them back in 1981 when they had made plans to spend Christmas together. Over the years, they had made many attempts to contact him, all with no success. Violet had been distraught at first, believing that he'd been killed in the war against that Dark Lord he'd told them about. It took months before she stopped breaking into tears every time she thought of him. Eventually, though, they moved on and accepted that Sirius was most likely gone. Violet made a point of maintaining the purple roses that Sirius helped her to plant as a small memorial to the nephew she loved so much.

It came as a wonderful surprise to the both of them to know that he was not dead and that the war he'd spoken of so many years ago had ended. Their joy of the reunion was marred, however, by the realization that he had spent the years he was missing from their lives locked away in the wizard prison Azkaban, haunted day and night by the despicable creatures known as dementors.

Their pain at his suffering turned to pride in him for doing the incredible and escaping the prison, a feat no one believed was possible, and that pride became wonder as they were informed of some of the circumstances of his arrival at their door on that November day in 1986.

"I did think it was a bit odd when you introduced a boy Harry's age as your son when I knew you didn't have a child five years ago, and it was a bit strange that you look so much older than you did the last time I saw you. So Claire really goes into working with manipulating time? Interesting." Zac and Violet were taking the news that Sirius, Remus, and Harry had come back in time to see them fairly calmly, even though they imagined that there was a lot more to the story than they were being told. After all, who goes to the trouble of going back in time just to get their child an education? They knew there must be something special that made it so important for Harry to get a magical education away from Hogwarts, but the two knew that Sirius would explain himself eventually and didn't pry.

"She seemed to enjoy her work, and she's clearly quite good at it since she managed to send the three of us back all this time."

"I'm sure she will enjoy her work. Claire is far too brilliant to stay in any field of work that she doesn't have a passion for. Now, it's getting quite late; might I suggest that we retire for the evening and work out the finer details of this arrangement tomorrow?"

Violet's statement made it clear to the time travelers exactly how long their day had been and they happily followed her upstairs and collapsed onto the beds they were shown, where they each fell into a deep slumber.

.

Harry's dreams were filled with glimpses of events that he couldn't recall ever happening, places he couldn't recall ever seeing, and people he couldn't recall ever meeting.

_A tall man with an Australian accent showing a dark haired boy a strange looking animal and the two of them looking at it like the most incredible piece of art they'd ever seen._

_Two dark haired teenagers playing a furious game of a sport Harry vaguely recognized from the television at Privet Drive._

_Two beautiful blondes, one male and one female, on a Quidditch pitch. The male was down on one knee, and the female was glowing with joy as the male asked her something that Harry couldn't quite hear and then stood up to embrace her and slide a sparkling ring onto her finger._

_A teenager whose appearance couldn't seem to stop shifting running through a forest and only stopping when they found a dying young dragon that appeared to be screaming in pain._

_A teenager who couldn't sleep wandering the halls of a castle late at night._

_Two men, one older than the other, sitting across from each other at a cluttered desk and planning something important._

_A classroom full of students in their late teens or early twenties all working on some of the most complicated potions Harry could have possibly imagined._

_A young man reaching into a pile of ashes where a bonfire had once stood and grabbing a small, circular piece of metal which he then tied to a conjured bit of cord which he tied around his neck as a necklace, a keepsake._

When he awoke, Harry did not remember anything he'd seen the previous night. He simply had a vague feeling that he'd had a nice dream that he didn't want to wake up from. He felt more well-rested than he had in a long time, and the sunshine warming his face as he woke left him feeling like this would be a good day.


End file.
